"Pure genius."-- New York Times "Lyrically compelling tales that are nearly impossible to stop reading...fans of weird writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff VanderMeer, and China Mieville will be glad to find this volume and thereby discover a writer who inspired them all." -- Booklist Caitl???n R. Kiernan is one of dark fantasy and horror's most acclaimed and influential short fiction writers. Her powerful, unexpected stories shatter morality, gender, and sexuality: a reporter is goaded by her toxic girlfriend into ...
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"Pure genius."-- New York Times "Lyrically compelling tales that are nearly impossible to stop reading...fans of weird writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff VanderMeer, and China Mieville will be glad to find this volume and thereby discover a writer who inspired them all." -- Booklist Caitl???n R. Kiernan is one of dark fantasy and horror's most acclaimed and influential short fiction writers. Her powerful, unexpected stories shatter morality, gender, and sexuality: a reporter is goaded by her toxic girlfriend into visiting sadistic art exhibits; a countess in a decaying movie theater is sated by her servants; a collector offers his greatest achievement to ensnare a musician who grieves for her missing sister. In this retrospective collection of her finest work--previously only available in limited editions--Kiernan cuts straight to the heart of the emotional truths we cannot ignore.
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'It's just the way I tell stories, right. You know that. I start at the beginning. I don't leave stuff out.' If only, Caitlin R Kiernan, if only!
For me a good short story is still complete in some way, it's a stripped-back story or a snapshot of one but it still needs to be coherent and immersive in its own right. Although it may not have all of the elements of a novel it still needs something to pull a reader in - whether that's a compelling main character, an interesting situation, a definitive ending or an intriguing backstory. I felt that the vast majority of stories in this collection by Caitlin R Kiernan failed in this definition. They felt a lot less like short stories and more like jumbled excerpts of larger, more interesting books. I was crying out for some of them to have a short synopsis at the beginning to tell me what I'd missed and what was going on so I could enjoy what was presented in front of me without feeling so utterly lost.
There were some stories, such as Houses Under the Sea, Bradbury Weather and A Season of Broken Dolls that from beginning to end I had absolutely no clue what was going on. I found myself skimming them and hoping the next story might be a little clearer. I think perhaps if we had been given context for these stories they may have actually been really interesting - they seemed to sometimes give a flash of something intriguing but it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared.
Even the ones I did like had their own problems. La Peau Verte for example, was a nice story with some great imagery and an interesting backstory, however it ended far too abruptly - as if the last chapter had been left out. In my humble opinion it would have tied much better together if her sister was sitting at the throne. Even the stories I would have rated 4/5 stars in the context of this anthology would only really have gotten 3 stars if I had read them standalone. The only story I actually enjoyed was the Ammonite Violin which had two interesting characters, told you enough about them to keep you engaged, had a sinister feel running all the way through it and a proper ending.
Overall if this is 'The Very Best' of Caitlin R Kiernan's work then I'm afraid it's not for me, there are some great ideas and imagery in here but it's all way too confusing to properly enjoy. Thank you to NetGalley & Tachyon Publications for a copy of the ARC in exchange for a (very!) honest review.
