oddly's review against another edition
1.0
It is rare that I give up on a book. And I’m talking rare like a liger sighting in the wild (look it up). But this short story collection was not for me, and I DNF.
I found the stories not only difficult to connect with on the level of idea and plot, but at times basically unreadable. This began with nonsensical sentence construction, continued with language and word choice that felt unnatural, and finished off with poor grammar and punctuation that needed editing help.
Some examples:
“Mapped, he’d sectioned his land into documented quadrants. Using the plow where possible, the loader bucket elsewhere, but most of the digging happened with a wooden-handled, clover-shaped, steel-mouthed shovel.” (78)
“Kaci thought all the sex was great, but by the end, she’d begun to dry out on rub of things gone on long enough.” (124)
I find it really difficult to ignore writing that isn’t, to some degree, polished. The mechanics of storytelling should be invisible to the reader; we just want to get lost in the story. But when I’m stuck trying to untangle the meaning of sentence after sentence or puzzling over word choice that feels so strange even an alien imposter wouldn’t have used that phrasing, reading becomes a chore. I lose track of the story.
There is probably the seed of some really good material in these stories, but they need work, not only with the mechanics but also in tightening up the storylines and creating meaningful characters we want to connect with. Horror is all about creating that connection, and these stories didn’t do it for me.
My thanks to the publisher and author for providing the Night Worms copies of this one to read and review.
I found the stories not only difficult to connect with on the level of idea and plot, but at times basically unreadable. This began with nonsensical sentence construction, continued with language and word choice that felt unnatural, and finished off with poor grammar and punctuation that needed editing help.
Some examples:
“Mapped, he’d sectioned his land into documented quadrants. Using the plow where possible, the loader bucket elsewhere, but most of the digging happened with a wooden-handled, clover-shaped, steel-mouthed shovel.” (78)
“Kaci thought all the sex was great, but by the end, she’d begun to dry out on rub of things gone on long enough.” (124)
I find it really difficult to ignore writing that isn’t, to some degree, polished. The mechanics of storytelling should be invisible to the reader; we just want to get lost in the story. But when I’m stuck trying to untangle the meaning of sentence after sentence or puzzling over word choice that feels so strange even an alien imposter wouldn’t have used that phrasing, reading becomes a chore. I lose track of the story.
There is probably the seed of some really good material in these stories, but they need work, not only with the mechanics but also in tightening up the storylines and creating meaningful characters we want to connect with. Horror is all about creating that connection, and these stories didn’t do it for me.
My thanks to the publisher and author for providing the Night Worms copies of this one to read and review.
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