Archive
Book Review: Fourth Degree Freedom by Libby Heily
Summary:
A collection of five widely varied short stories.
“Thank You For Calling”–A day in the life of a woman working for a call center during the Recession.
“The Event”–A dystopian future where once a year male teens and young adults go out and shoot the elderly.
“Fourth Degree Freedom”–A post nuclear war future where some children are born as different degrees of “monsters.”
“The Last Six Miles”–A woman gets over her divorce by becoming a runner.
“She Floats”–A woman wakes up in a tank with limited oxygen left and a man observing.
Review:
It’s difficult to talk about this collection as a whole, since the stories range so vastly, not only over different genres, but also in quality of writing. Thus, I must address them individually.
“Thank You For Calling”
I don’t usually do contemporary literary, but this one made me smile and sad almost simultaneously. The main character is struggling during the recession, but she also must listen to other people’s problems all day. A bit of a typical storyline? Yes. But still relatable and well-written. 3 stars
“The Event”
The best story in the collection. I recommend to Heily that she turn this one into a novel. A future with no violence and thus overpopulation is typical is dystopian fiction, but Heily takes it in a fun direction. The final scene leaves the reader doubting that the main character knows the truth about his own society. There were also no obvious flaws in the writing itself. 5 stars
“Fourth Degree Freedom”
This personally didn’t hit any of my own hot buttons, but it is well written. The idea of chemicals from war affecting different pregnancies in different ways is an interesting one. Having a sibling see the humanity in the monster child where others do not is rather typical, but still touching. 4 stars
“The Last Six Miles”
Being the fitness nut that I am, I really enjoyed seeing the main character go from a depressed over-eater to a marathon runner. The content of this story is uplifting, even if the ending is a bit predictable. 4 stars
“She Floats”
I was so incredibly disappointed in this one. I had the feeling from the first few sentences that this was basically going to be a Saw rip-off, and it was. There’s nothing wrong with having a psycho kidnap a person and put them in a trap to get out of, but it must have something else in it that makes it different from the well-known series. 1 star
Overall, this collection starts out average, strengthens, then crashes at the end. I also believe Heily may have trouble finding an audience due to the variance from literary to dystopian and then to horror. I would advise her to take the two strong dystopian stories and either make them into novels or write more scifi short stories and repackage them together. Similarly, the literary fiction I believe would strongly appeal to many modern women during this current recession. If she adds more literary stories to these two and packages it as a type of collection for the modern woman, she could have great success with them. The last story must be re-done or trashed, however. It sours the rest.
Essentially, if any of the short stories above appeals to you, I would encourage you to get this book. It is only 99cents, and a good short story is definitely worth that.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: Hungry For You by A. M. Harte
Summary:
A collection of zombie-themed short stories and poetry with the twist that they all have to do with romantic relationships in some way, shape, or form.
Review:
This is a solid collection of short stories and poetry that can be enjoyed one at a time or inhaled in one sitting. I went for the one sitting option.
In some stories Harte sticks to zombie tropes but in not all. The ones where she varies or surprises the reader in some way are definitely the stronger ones. She has an ability to imagine multiple different possible zombie apocalypses that are all, if not equally believable, still believable. Her dialogue is a definite strength, reading as incredibly realistic in the midst of fantastical happenings.
Where she excels though, and where I would encourage her to focus future horror writings, is when she uses the zombies and zombie apocalypse as a metaphor or an instigator for something in a relationship from women’s perspective. My three favorite stories from the collection–“Dead Man’s Rose,” “Seven Birds,” and “Alive”–all feature this element. In “Dead Man’s Rose,” the zombie is a metaphor for an abusive lover who refuses to grant the woman her freedom. In “Seven Birds” the surprise of the zombie apocalypse coincides nicely with an unexpected break-up (I particularly enjoyed that female character’s reaction to both). In “Alive” the female character must deal both with the zombie apocalypse and the emotional fall-out after a one-night stand with a co-worker. These are all three things modern women face in relationships and getting to see them take place in a world infested with zombies (one of my favorite kinds) was such a welcome change! Too often, especially in zombie movies, we see the apocalypse from a man’s perspective and not from a woman’s. I found myself saying to Harte in my head, “Ignore the male perspective and switch to just writing from the female perspective, because you do it so well!” For instance, it’s not every day in a female zombie fiction fan’s life that you come across a resonant passage like this:
When I am lonely for boys what I miss is their bodies. The smell of their skin, its saltiness. The rough whisper of stubble against my cheek. The strong firm hands, the way they rest on the curve of my back. (location 1206)
Never have I come across a passage in zombie fiction that so struck at the heart of what it is to be a modern straight woman, and to have that followed up by oh no zombies was just awesome.
There are a few shortcomings though. A couple of the stories simply felt too short, and a couple of them–“A Prayer to Garlic” and “Arkady, Kain, & Zombies”–just didn’t make much sense to me. I think the former would have benefited from being a bit longer with more explanation, whereas the latter actually felt too long and had a couple of plot holes that I couldn’t wrap my mind around. This collection is periodically more British than at other times. One short story revolves around tea to an extent that I’m afraid a Boston gal like myself just couldn’t quite relate to. I know that those more British stories will definitely appeal to the type who love Doctor Who for instance, though. I also really wish it included a table of contents. That would be super-helpful in revisiting those stories readers would like to revisit.
Overall this book is definitely worth the add to any zombie fan’s collection, but particularly to female zombie fans. It’s different and fun simultaneously.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 122 pages – novella
Source: Smashwords copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Buy It (Amazon. Not available on Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Cthulhurotica an anthology published by Dagan Books
Summary:
This collection of short stories, art, and poetry pay homage to H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos by adding an erotic twist. Lovecraft was notoriously up-tight about sex, yet his mythos inspires erotica. Stories, poetry, and art draw inspiration from everything from Nyarlathotep, to the Old Ones, to Cthulu himself. These works of art promise spine tingles of both horror and pleasure.
Review:
I knew the instant I saw the gorgeous cover and read the title of this book that I had to read it. I am completely taken with the Cthulu mythos and always felt the only thing it was missing was some raunchy sex. This collection definitely tastefully delivers on both. You won’t find pages and pages of sex, rather the sexual encounters occur as a key plot point to the various stories, rather like well-written sex scenes in romance novels. Only with tentacles. And gore.
Naturally as with any short story collection there are tales deliciously pulled off and others less so. Thankfully, most of the short stories fall into the previous category. Three in particular–“The Fishwives of Sean Brolly”, “The Assistant from Innsmouth”, and “The Summoned”–really rocked my world as they are not only deliciously entertaining, but also offer thoughtful commentary on gender roles and relationships. In fact this is what moves the collection from just a bit of fun to thought-provoking territory, and that is always the sign of a good story.
Further, I am quite pleased to point out that the collection is very GLBTQ friendly. Multiple stories feature non-heteronormative relationships, and the GLBTQ characters are as well-rounded as the straight ones. I offer my applause to Dagan Books for its choices of stories to include.
As far as the artwork, it is all beautiful and impressive. Enough so that I’m seriously considering acquiring a paper copy to keep kicking around my apartment. The pictures suck the viewer in in the tradition of the classic piece of tentacle erotic art “The Fisherman’s Wife.”
Overall, this is a highly entertaining read. Although some of the stories fall short of others in the collection, most of them offer up chills and delights in addition to social commentary. I highly recommend it to those fond of the Lovecraft universe as well as those with an interest in gender/sexuality.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Book Review: The Sweet Smell of Success and Other Stories by Ernest Lehman
Summary:
A collection of Ernest Lehman’s noir style short fiction, including The Comedian and The Sweet Smell of Success, which was turned into a film in the 1950s. Varying in length from flash to many pages, most of the stories address the damage caused to individuals by the overly hungry theater, movie, and television industries. Some of the stories also look at individuals suffering from discontent in marriage.
Review:
My first entry in my reading challenge to read books I bought for university but never got around to reading. This was assigned for my Film Noir class in conjunction with watching The Sweet Smell of Success. I loved that class and at least enjoyed the assigned books that I read at the time. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for these short stories.
Lehman’s writing doesn’t just evoke the past of the 1950s, it evokes an alternate, incredibly depressing universe. I have the feeling that was his point in writing these stories. The entertainment industry is evil and will slowly rob you of your soul. There’s definitely merit in that, but it can get a bit depressing and redundant to read the same theme over and over again.
I also found the dialogue jarring. The characters do things like call other men “baby,” and I can’t help but wonder if people actually talked like that back then. It made the stories ring a bit more fake to me than I think they should have.
Three of the stories revolve around press agent Sidney Falco and columnist J. J. Hunsecker. While I enjoyed these short stories it felt as if someone had ripped out three chapters from a back and handed them to me out of order. I wish Lehman had written this as a book or novella. He clearly had an affinity for these characters, as he repeatedly came back to them to explore them, so I wonder why he never just wrote a long piece about them.
The Comedian though is where Lehman hits his stride in this style and theme. He takes just the right amount of time to tell the story. He subtly lets us know the background information vital to feeling something for these characters on this crucial day, and the overarching them of the story is deeper than “the entertainment industry is evil.” Oh, it is still represented as bad, but that is not the main point of the story, which makes it stronger. I recommend reading this short story if you can get your hands on it.
Overall, if you’re in the mood for a marathon session of dark noir, you’ll enjoy this book. Otherwise, I’d recommend finding one of the short stories to get a taste of the 1950s version of the genre.
2.5 out of 5 stars
Source: University bookstore
Support my work with a tip or browse my shop for curated book club guides, how to guides, cross-stitch patterns, and more!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 