Nate
Shit this collection was good.
Horror is about loss. Loss of agency, loss of comfort, loss of love, loss of direction, loss of future, loss of goals, loss of desire, loss of innocence, etc etc etc. So to make people actually feel that horror, you need to make them care about what's being lost.
Maggie Siebert fucking CARES, and you can tell. There is so much longing and pain in this book. The emotional core stuffed inside these tight jagged stories is always burning brightly through, daring you to look away, making you pray for a happy ending even when you know it won't come.
In no particular order, the stories that stood out the most for me - Best Friend, Coping, Every Day for the Rest of Your Life (definitely my favorite of the bunch), Witches, and Smells
Need more..
One of the best collections of short fiction I've ever read. Wow.
Like the best combination of Lynch and Ligotti imaginable, with maybe a sprinkling of Robert Chambers?
I need to read more Michael Cisco.
These books have legit the most bombastic climaxes of anything I've ever read. It's wild. Doubt anything will top book 3's but this one got pretty close.
Kind of hard for me to follow at the beginning since I'm trying to space my reading of these out a bit to not catch up too quickly and my memory is a box of farts, but I got there eventually.
Really curious what the long term plan for this series is. It's definitely not gonna go the full 18 or more books I feel like it's kinda implying it will right? I feel like something's got to give before that. Especially since there shouldn't be more than a handful of other crawlers by like #10 right? Hopefully it all gets blown up way before that, I can't hold that much story in my head for long enough to make it much further than that. Also because I think I like the one-offs like K:BS slightly better.
Paradoxically both too long and too short. Way too short to give any of the characters the gravity their melodramatic deaths seem to want to evoke. But simultaneously written in an overlong repetitive style that made the entire thing drag.
That's 2 books in a row this year (this and The Shining) that I read because I absolutely fucking love the movie and heard the book was even better and ended up being super disappointed. Insanely rare that this happens to me :(.
I'm having bad luck with books this year. So many 2-3 stars :(.
Another one that I'm finding hard to rate.
I almost DNF'd this one a few times in the first half before it started to work for me. I found the jokes didn't land, the action boring, and the edgelord-y offensiveness tryhard and rote (misogyny, homophobia, sexual violence, and racism are like, the lowest hanging fruit of offensiveness. Try harder. That kind of shit just makes me roll my eyes.)
But I pushed through. I had to. This book seemed almost tailor-made for me. I've worked in basically nothing but supermarkets my entire adult life. I'm into horror, slashers, extreme horror, comedy horror, I loved extreme metal in the 90s/00s, I love cults, I love ridiculous kills and camp and the pure outlandish fun that only the most goofy of 80s splattery exploitation movies can elicit.
I think the first ~130 pages of this 240 page book are just straight up not very good. Pushing 2/5 at my most generous. But then something happened and this book took the most insane uptick in quality I have ever seen a book take in my life. It's like the authors suddenly realized what this book was, and what it needed to be, and what worked and what didn't, because the last 25% of this book is absolutely incredible.
It's like the first 75% of this book was a rough draft written by an ambitious highschooler, and the last 25% was the literal platonic ideal of this concept. You know at the end of Bill & Ted 2, when B&T are playing at the battle of the bands and they realize that they don't know how to actually play their instruments so they hop in their time machine to grow out their ZZ Top beards, pop out some babies, and spend a few years learning how to play and write music before coming back and absolutely crushing it? I am not convinced that this isn't what Triana and Harding did before finishing this book.
The jokes started landing HARD, the creativity on the kills and set pieces went through the fucking roof, the gross bits made me actually queasy, every single piece fell perfectly into place and it ended on such a glorious high note I almost want to give the entire book 5/5 in retrospect.
I think I'm landing on a 4, but it's a 4 with huge caveats.
An absolutely perfect book. Would make a great movie. Tightly paced, well written and VERY SPOOKY.
Was reading this book before bed and around midnight I had to sneak off to the bathroom and I found myself hurrying and jumping at shadows and feeling all sorts of spookified, and that is super rare. This book really got under my skin. I loved it so much.
It doesn't hurt that analog horror bildungsroman might be the perfect genre for me.
Like a lot of the other reviews of this one, I felt that it was severely in need of some strict editing. I really respect the fact that Dinniman plotted out such an intricate puzzlebox floor with every foreground and background piece's placements and movements meticulously tracked and detailed, and I can appreciate and understand the desire to include all that background work in the narrative proper. But for me? I really wish most of it was left on the cutting room floor. It felt way too procedural, lots of repetitive overwhelming details that ended up making a big chunk of this a slog to get through.
The actual story beats though? Holy shit. So goddamn good. The climax at the midpoint had me fucking PUMPED. I feel like the stakes were pretty low for most of this one, but when they ramp up, they fucking RAMP UP.
I absolutely love Katia (her spotlight moment is the series highlight so far), Donut is still the fucking best, and I can't wait to see more of creepy screaming sociopath goatman.
I gotta squeeze some other books in before I read the next one because at this rate I'm gonna be caught up way too soon.
Grady Hendrix's is the next Stephen King.
His prose is clean and serviceable, nothing fancy, nothing deep, and his worldbuilding falls apart if you stare at it a little too hard, but jesus fucking christ can this man write a page-turner. His books are absurdly well paced, his plotting is tight and immaculate and his character arcs are phenomenal.
It's so hard for me to start one of his books and not immediately devour the entire thing (I'm already halfway through We Sold Our Souls just 2 days after finishing this...).
He's not high literature, but he's top tier entertainment. I hope he continues at this pace for the next 40 years.
Suffers a bit from middle book syndrome but is still a really solid read.
While I love the heavy handed way Dinniman fosters consistent interest and narrative drive through big plot twists and dramatic cliff-hangers, one thing I've noticed more throughout this entry is the more gentle handed, subtle approach he uses for character development and dramatic elements. It's a really well coordinated two-pronged attack that works incredibly well. The pathos is surprisingly effective and grounded for what is ostensibly outrageous and ridiculous and for me that's the quintessential core element of what makes this series work for me as well as it does.
More like a 3.5?
I've listened to all of Terry Miles' podcasts and I don't know how but he always ropes me in and I always feel the exact same sense of dissatisfaction by the end. “This time it'll be different!” I think, going back to another one of his works. It never is though.
There are a lot of things about this book (and his entire oeuvre in general) that I feel like I could drag and be super nitpicky about, but also a lot of that doesn't really matter in the moment, because his works are just straight up fun.
I really think Terry Miles should be working in TV or film. He's a bit too action oriented for podcasts, and a bit too script oriented for books. I really think he'd find his stride and a huge new audience if some mid-tier studio took a chance and let him create a pilot.
I fucking inhaled this book. Complete popcorn novel.
Not quite as good as Kaiju:BS, but that's probably because that was a complete story and this one ends with a cliffhanger that propels you directly into the sequel.. if you can even call it a sequel, more like each book is an arc of a massive webnovel. Speaking of webnovels, I haven't gotten this thoroughly hooked on a book since Worm. Finished this first book in under a week and am already 20% through the next.
Really really charming. Fun and refreshing and goofy and weird and just a really pleasant experience. I read so many self-serious meaningful novels that I almost forgot how quickly and completely I can be immersed in something so straightforward and addictive.
Gruellingly relevant biting satire wrapped around a beautiful and powerful emotional core.
Debt is just a number. Money is a social construct.
Eat the fucking rich.
Gordon Ramsay voice
“Finally some good fucking cosmic horror”
I didn't know this was an SCP book going in, and I'm glad I didn't because I definitely wouldn't have given it the chance it deserves.
There's a complex balancing act that is underway in this book and I don't think it lands it completely successfully, but it sure gets close.
The set-up/payoff for the emotional/human story is perfect. I loved the characters and qntm absolutely nailed their arcs.
At the same time though, this is a high concept plot driven scifi narrative, with one of the strongest and most interesting set-ups I've ever come across. A set-up/thought experiment that's going to be bouncing around inside my head for the rest of my life alongside other info hazards like Roko's Basilisk. This set-up gives this book 5 stars alone. I can't overstate how monumentally into this concept I am.
That said, the payoff was a bit disappointing. I was really hoping for a final third that matched the conceptual density of the opening third, but I don't think it really got there for me. It gave me the emotional catharsis and satisfaction of a well told character drama, but with it being so plot driven I was excited for and anticipating a surprising and/or interesting and/or thought provoking plot resolution and didn't really get that.
I think maybe telling this story within the confines of the SCP universe hamstringed the author a little. Might have gone better with the serial numbers filed off?
Either way, 5 fucking stars. I seriously loved it and am hype for anything qntm puts out in the future.
(2.5 rounded up)
As someone who reads almost exclusively horror, splatter, and transgressive LGBT fiction, hates TERFs and fascists, and wanted more than anything to be able to write a 5-star ‘fuck you review-bombing transphobe shitheels' review, I came into this book ready to love whatever it presented me with.
I didn't, and I don't get to write that review now :(.
I don't really like writing bad reviews so I'm not gonna say too much, but I did read Felker-Martin's novella ‘Dreadnought' last year and loved it. I didn't review it, but one of the aspects I remember feeling very strongly about was her amazingly efficient use of language in that book. She painted these gorgeous fleshed out scenes with perfectly economical word choice and phrasing. Lush movements and environments sprung out fully formed from a handful of words. It really impressed me. This book is the literal opposite of that and I found it super frustrating. There is about as much story in this as there is in ‘Dreadnought' but this is 200 pages longer. It feels so painfully padded out.
Hidden inside the stuff I hated about this book are some moments of tremendous genius and achievement. There's a chapter near the middle that I think might be my favorite chapter of anything I've read this year. There is such deep pathos and empathy and pain and instruction about the trans experience and body dysmorphia and mental illness and found family and loss and longing and lost futures and ahhhh it is so goddamn brilliant. It's frustrating that it's so deeply sandwiched between uninspired nothingness..
That said, fuck you review bombing terfs, good job Gretchen in triggering all these incel religious fruitcake douchenozzles and I'll probably like the next one more.
More like 3.5. Super hard to review. Like Oyamada's other work I love and relate heavily to the ideas presented, but the lack of structure and plot make it ultimately ring kinda hollow.
Am a fan though and will keep reading anything she writes.
I had a strange experience while reading this novella. I only realized, after reaching around the 70% point, that my subconscious was picturing the stuff happening in the style of 80s film practical effects. My imagination is usually pretty straight forward. I picture what's written however my brain thinks it would look. But in this book everything was fake blood and wet puppets and spotlights through smoke and shadow and I loved it. It's got me thinking about actively cultivating different stylistic choices in my imagination while reading and that's new and cool I guess.
That aside, this book is fucking terrific. It was interesting seeing the iterative elements added between the writing of this and the filming of the movie. Like, I find it wild that Kirsty was only changed to being Julia and Rory's stepdaughter in the movie and that she was only a family friend in the book. It feels like that's such an essential piece of the plot and perfectly encapsulates Frank's moral reprehensibility/corruption. Crazy to me that that wasn't in the original draft.
The book does a much better job of portraying Julia's inner world, Frank's motivations, and the worldbuilding at large and makes the Cenobites feel way creepier and alien, but paradoxically also more understandable. Also the BDSM brush they're painted with in the film kinda sends a weird mixed message that I'm not a huge fan of. Stop yucking other people's yum Clive.
One thing I was really looking forward to was seeing how Frank's reanimation scene ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erpHSw3x5cE (straight up top 3 practical effects horror scenes in movie history)) would work in writing, but it mostly just happens off-screen :/.
Book > film imo, but that's me in most cases anyway.
I LOVED this. So much fun. So fucking weird.
Straddles genres so effectively, but stays perfectly cohesive the entire way through. It starts as a fun bedfellow with ‘Ingrid Goes West' before smoothly transitioning into an almost Yorgos Lanthimos-esque cringe-horror and then continues to take these wildly surprising sharp right turns until it drops you off in a place that you somehow could never have predicted but that also feels perfectly inevitable.
Wish I could give this one more than 5 stars. Not just my favorite thing I've read this year, but probably one of my favorite things I've read ever? As soon as I finished it I wanted to reset my progress and start all over?? I never feel that way.
I don't think I've ever read anything that SO accurately expressed my inner mental state all the time? This book feels like it was pulled straight from my own brain.
It's not without its issues. A big chunk near the end drags a bit, and feels almost like it's taking a quick victory lap before the finale, but whatever, I could read 100 more Lu chapters.
Also Negative Space has the single most heartrending use of foreshadowing I've ever experienced. I spent the last third of the book dreading the inevitable use of a single word, and when it dropped it fucking wrecked me :'(
And I loooooved the LGBT representation. LGBT characters exist, and aren't defined by their queerness. It's not even brought up. They're just allowed to exist, and it's wonderful.
This book is going to stick with me for a long time.
(Also, I don't understand the people who are like “I wish everything was spelled out for me! They didn't explain any of the mystery?”, I dunno, learn to engage with your art more? Try more to interpret and less to be spoonfed? You frustrate me >:[ )
Super bold experiment with flawless execution. I couldn't imagine this style of book being done better than this.
Kind of a failed experiment though :/. While I loved these stories, and I love the risks taken in this collection, they just weren't very engaging. I'm glad he tried and I'm glad I read it but its a hard recommend to anyone.
So incredibly good omg.
Reminds me a lot of BR Yeager's Amygdalatropolis I read a few weeks back. Both deal with truth in an internet world through a verisimilitudenous (is that a word?) epistolary framework.
Where Amygdalatropolis deals with a subculture I'm at least tangentially knowledgeable about, The Sluts exists in a realm I know nothing about (which might make sense of why I'm such a big fan of these gay focused transgressive horror novels?)
I fucking loved it. This is my second Dennis Cooper and definitely not my last.
Straight tore through this. Couldn't put it down. Fucking looooooved it. I can see how it'd be hit or miss for some people. I thought it was surprisingly hilarious, super dark, and really witty and charming. Especially loved all the goofy little details (her LotR obsession omg hahaha) that made Irina feel especially realistic and affable underneath all the narcissism.
Also sent me down a ton of letterboxd rabbit holes which I always enjoy. She's got some eccentric taste and I'm here for it.
This book isn't perfect, but man did it fucking work me over.
Another book I've had on my list for awhile due to an r/horrorlit thread and I went in almost completely blind. I barely ever read book synopses (I feel like they almost always tell me exactly the things that I DON'T want to know about a book and exactly none of the things I DO want to know. I tend to care a lot more about themes/mood/vibes/style etc. than hard plot beats) so I came into this one with some vague expectations of cosmic horror + vampires in space.
Basically I expected pulp. This is not pulp. This is heady, deep, philosophical hard sci-fi with a nihilistic horror bent. This is like if you fed Liu Cixin a diet of Liggoti and Cioran before sending him off to write ‘The Dark Forest'. And like Liu's ‘The Dark Forest' (and Ligotti's ‘The Conspiracy Against the Human Race'), this is the kind of book that added a fundamentally new perspective to how I view the universe and my place in it, and so despite any flaws that it may have in execution, it'll be one of the books I think about regularly for the rest of my life.
Speaking of execution, all of my complaints about ‘Blindsight' fall distinctly in that category. The book, ESPECIALLY the first half, relies heavily on overbearing sci-fi nonsense jargon. I can appreciate some goofy jargon in my sci-fi, but so much of the book has passages that are like “Franklin-Borson radiation poured over my cortical synapse receptors and sent fireworks of vorpal pixels cascading across my neuro-displays. I shouted, “Fourth dimensional proton plasma shouldn't have this kind of resonance decoherence!” I would later find out that it was because the attack was a fifth dimensional electro-plasmic neutron stream”. I know this is hyperbole, but it really felt that way at times.
When ‘Blindsight' really hits its stride is when all the themes start collapsing down into each other like a brilliant philosophical Matryoshka doll and you get completely blindsided with its horrifying final argument. No spoilers, but holy shit, it is wonderful. Exactly the flavor of deep cosmic nihilism I like in my philosophical arguments. Real strong Ligotti vibes. As the kids say, I'm shook.
Hope the sequel is as good. It has some ridiculously big shoes to fill though..