A review by pearseanderson
Alabaster: Wolves by Steve Lieber, Rachelle Rosenberg, Caitlín R. Kiernan

2.0

Okay, I read the first issue of this in Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume 2 and it was amazing. This graphic is not amazing. It has a lot of things going for it, but it never uses the rich setting to its advantage (the final story, Alabaster:Shelter did some of that). Kudzu, Nehi, covered bridges, Greyhounds, defiled churches, circus signs, c'mon guys. This should be easy. Instead, Kiernan decides to focus on the overused supernatural aspects of the Southern Gothic: abandoned plantations, grimoires, evil werewolves, ghosts with dastardly plans that trick out the protagonist and finally offer their hand in the vague, bad-guy scheme. C'mon. You could've worked with your material in a much better way than having Dancy going around, stabbing beasts, being saved and herded towards the next location, and repeating until a terribly unfantastic ending. I want back what I read in that Weird Fiction anthology: the riddle game, the bus stop, the talking bird, the seraph, the whispers about highway killings and forest monsters. There's a great broken Americana/Southern horror Gothic/low fantasy that isn't being told properly, and it saddens me.