Attlee, Harper & Smith, Gross Ideas (2020)

Edwina Attlee, Phineas Harper & Maria Smith (eds), Gross Ideas: Tales of Tomorrow’s Architecture. The Architecture Foundation, 2020. Pp. 208. ISBN 978-1-9996462-3-3. £12.90.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Gross Ideas is a book unlike many others, for a number of reasons. First of all it is the companion publication of an architecture exhibition, the Oslo Architecture Triennale. But rather than a traditional catalogue it is an anthology of seventeen stories about future cities. The other peculiarity is that only some of the authors of these stories are fiction writers, the others are architects and engineers. So, if you like the challenge of something unusual, this book might be the right one for you.

Dark Magazine 50 (2019)

The Dark Magazine, ed. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Michael Kelly, & Sean Wallace. Issue #50 (July 2019). Prime Books. $1.99 or online at thedarkmagazine.com.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

The Dark is a monthly e-magazine currently edited by Sean Wallace, Silvia Moreno Garcia and Michael Kelly. According to their guidelines, they specialise in horror and dark fantasy, but I believe that the title reflects a certain preference for those stories that are more disquieting and unsettling than gory. Each month The Dark publishes four stories that can be read for free online or bought as an e-book to be read offline. Although four stories make The Dark a relatively slim publication, this editorial choice also seems to guarantee consistently high standards, allowing the editors to be particularly selective, and leaving the reader (at least this reader!) always wanting for more.

Leib & Holt (edd.), Resist Fascism (2018)

Bart R. Leib & Kay T. Holt (edd.), Resist Fascism. Crossed Genres Publications, 2018. Pp. 95. ISBN 978-0-9913921-4-8. $9.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Resist Fascism is a micro-anthology, published by Crossed Genres last November after a successful Kickstarter. The idea was to put together a little squad of rebellious stories to be distributed just in time for the US midterm election. What I liked the most in this project is that, as editors Leib and Holt explain on the back cover, the anthology is based on the principle that you don’t need to be a hero to resist, and even actively oppose, fascism. Fighting oppressive and unjust regimes does not necessarily mean joining an armed guerrilla and blowing up bridges; it can be a small act of disobedience, or any other way in which someone chins up and refuses to follow a law or a system they believe unfair. In other words, resistance is for everyone. We don’t need to wait until we are ready, we already are.

Meikle, Ghost Club (2017)

William Meikle, The Ghost Club: Newly Found Tales of Victorian Terror. Crystal Lake Publishing, 2017. Pp. 189. ISBN 978-1-642049-31-2. $14.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

The Ghost Club by William Meikle is an unusual collection of ghost-themed short stories, that is something in between an homage and a divertissement. The idea behind the book is quite bold, but also very endearing: each of the stories here gathered are written by one single author, but in the style of a different famous writer of ghost stories of the past (mostly, but not only, from the British Victorian era). In other words, it is a collection that pretends to be an anthology. The explicit fakery is one of the things that attracted me to the book in the first place. Editorially, the stories are presented as if they were written by authors such as R.L. Stevenson or Bram Stoker. In this way, Meikle actually combines two of my passions: falsification and ghosts. How could I resist?

Grangeri, Non sorrideva mai (2002)

Antonia Grangeri, Non sorrideva mai. I Libri dell’Orsa Edizioni, 2002. Pp. 240. ISBN 1-31-221017-X. €14.00.

Reviewed by Scirocco

The first novel by Antonia Grangeri (now published in English translation as She Never Smiled. Syncerus Books, 2018. Pp. 261. ISBN 978-7-3492-2998-8. £12.99) brings vampire stories from dark and foggy castles to the sun-burnt and desolate landscapes of the South of Italy at the beginning of the 20th century. The introduction of supernatural events into the everyday life of a closed rural community might be described as “magic realism.” However, the reader shouldn’t expect the heart-warming tenderness of Garcia Marquez’s or Udhari’s prose. Grangeri’s style is close to an unexpected encounter between Antani’s horror tales and Zola’s social realism.

Crowley, 100 Best Video Games (2017)

Nate Crowley, 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed). Solaris Books, 2017. Pp. 260. ISBN 978-1-78108-614-8. $17.99/£12.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Literature is full of entertaining anecdotes on how books were born: unforgettable personal experiences, reminiscences of a dream, an unusual meeting, surreal coincidences, a strike of inspiration… you name it. This book was born on the internet and, more precisely, on Twitter. Emerging SF writer and game geek Nate Crowley promised a video game concept for each “like” received. The idea was so successful that the thread rapidly got out of hand. Luckily, someone thought that there were enough good seeds there to craft an entire book out of them. The author took things further and didn’t stop at the simple description of the made-up video games, but teamed up with real game designers to sketch very convincing features and even graphics, making this amusing fakery completely believable.

Devlin, You Will Grow Into Them (2017)

Malcolm Devlin, You Will Grow Into Them. Unsung Stories, 2017. Pp. 244. ISBN 978-1-9073-43-6. £9.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

You Will Grow Into Them is a collection of stories by Malcolm Devlin, published together for the first time by Unsung Stories. All labeled as “weird,” the tales gathered in this book offer an interesting range of themes as well as styles, from the gruesome demon-hunting scenes to the subtle, diffuse inquietude that crawls under the skin. As the title suggests, the common thread of these stories is change, and the unsettling feeling that follows all transformations, the small like the big ones. The changes that are narrated in these pages are sometimes metaphorical, like the process of coming of age, but more often involve proper and complete reshaping of bodies and environments. The “weirdness” that populates Devlin’s stories is the kind that I enjoy the most: not necessarily the gory and horrific but more the sinister, the ambiguous, the eerie, the unexplained and the inexplicable.

Yardley, Beautiful Sorrows (2017)

Mercedes M. Yardley, Beautiful Sorrows. Apex Publications, 2017. Pp. 156. ISBN 978-1-93700-953-3. $13.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Beautiful Sorrows is a collection of fantasy, weird and horror stories by Mercedes M. Yardley that has been recently re-published by Apex Books, after its first appearance for Shock Totem Publications. The collection gathers twenty seven stories of different lengths, from very short flash pieces that do not last more than couple lines, to longer and more complex ones. The book comes with an enthusiastic introduction by P. Gardner Goldsmith that it is, I believe, what every author dreams of reading in the opening words that accompany their book. Beautiful Sorrows is not only described using a long list of superlatives, but is compared to nothing less than the songs of the Sirens.

Begay, Edgar Allan Poe: Adult Coloring Book (2016)

Odessa Begay, Edgar Allan Poe: An Adult Coloring Book. Sterling Publishing, 2016. Pp. 96. ISBN 978-1-45492-135-6. $14.95.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Edgar Allan Poe: An Adult Coloring Book by Odessa Begay is a fun experiment in mixing the darkest literature with the playful experience of messing around with colours. The large, coffee-table format, and the very attractive cover with metallic-red details make this book something that won’t go unnoticed. Unfortunately, sometimes the quality of the drawings is not as good as one might hope, and the occasionally careless execution leaves one with the feeling of a missed opportunity.

Whiteley, Skein Island (2015)

Aliya Whiteley, Skein Island. Dog Horn Publishing, 2015. Pp. 200. ISBN 978-1-907133-85-5. £10.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Skein Island, by acclaimed horror and fantasy author Aliya Whiteley, is a supernatural mystery novel that combines the investigation of uncommon events with the investigation of the characters’ feelings and motivations. The story has three main settings, as well as three different narrative streams, each of them featuring detours and digressions, that merge smoothly towards the end. The first is a small island in British waters, the Skein Island the book is named after, where only women are allowed. The place was bought by an eccentric millionaire who had (apparently) used her means to create and maintain a unique retreat where women could focus solely on reaching that self-awareness, strength, or peace of mind they felt was missing from their current lives; a place without men where women could be absolutely safe. The rich woman would offer, cyclically, free two-week stays at the island to a small number of women, selected from among the many applications received. During these two weeks, the women wouldn’t have to worry about anything but their own well being: everything else would be taken care of by an all-female staff.

Haven, Mama Cried (2015)

Talia Haven, Mama Cried. Self published, 2015. Pp. 12. ASIN B00S2RKNFU. $0.99.

Reviewed by Valerie Vitale

Mama Cried by Talia Haven is an unusual, well written, short ghost story that builds on folkloric archetypes, presenting them to the reader within a different and fascinating narrative. One of the things that struck me the most about this piece is how the author shapes the different atmospheres that the story evokes, going, gradually but at a fast pace, from a vaguely eerie feeling, to spooky mysteriousness, evolving into proper, overt ghost story, and, eventually, into horror. The tale develops around one main idea, and I think that the form of short story suits it perfectly. Haven avoids the temptation of expanding something that, in my opinion, has in its brevity one of the reasons of its effectiveness.

Roberts & Wessely, Cranky Ladies of History (2015)

Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely (eds.), Cranky Ladies of History. FableCroft Publishing, 2015. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-0-9925534-5-6. AUD$34.95.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Cranky Ladies of History, edited by Tehani Wessely and Tansy Rayner Roberts, and published by FableCroft, is the literary outcome of a crowdfunding campaign in March 2014. The theme, as the fundraiser announced, are the stories of women who have challenged (and sometimes changed) the expectations of what sort of behaviour was acceptable or appropriate for them, from ancient to more recent times. I was fond of this project even before reading the book. I liked the idea that these stories would contribute to make women in history a little more visible, to remind us that these protagonists (and many others like them) were not mere accessories or docile companions. In other words, in spite of what history written by men wants us to believe, this anthology points out that women existed and had agency, not only as daughters or wives or mothers of someone else.

Helgadóttir & Thomas, European Monsters (2014)

Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas (edd.), European Monsters. Fox Spirit Books, 2014. Pp. 159. ISBN 978-1-909348-72-1. £10.00/$15.00.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

European Monsters is an illustrated anthology published by Fox Spirit Books and edited by Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas, featuring thirteen stories and two short comics. As the title suggests, they are all built around one or more monstrous creatures, and have Europe (in the past, present or speculative alter-times) as setting. The quality of the stories collected is consistently good and makes the slim book rather pleasant reading.

Samatar, Stranger in Olondria (2013)

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria. Small Beer Press, 2013. Pp 300. ISBN 978-1-93152-076-8. $16.00.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar—winner of the 2014 Campbell Award for Best New Writer—is a book of unusual beauty that glorifies the art of narration in both its form and content. Samatar’s debut novel has the charm of complexity, but devoid of the coldness of intellectualism, every page marked by the rare literary talent of its author. The book is made of smaller and bigger stories, knitted together harmoniously in spite of their diversity; stories about knowledge, languages, love, sorrow, the supernatural. If you’re wondering how it is possible to link them together in a single, unforgettable tale, open this book and prepare to be amazed.

Moreno-Garcia, Signal to Noise (2015)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Signal to Noise. Solaris Books, 2015. Pp. 336. ISBN 978-1-7810-8299-7. $9.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, published by Solaris—a small press particularly keen on talent scouting—is a captivating story about friendship, music and magic, set in Mexico City. The book tells the adventures of an improbable group of friends in their teens, Meche, Sebastian and Daniela, who discover they can cast magic spells using music records, and decide to use this ability to improve their lives. Or so they think. Talented author and editor of dark-leaning speculative fiction, Moreno-Garcia has put aside (almost completely) her creepiest tones, and produced an easy to read (and like) debut novel; a pocketable time machine able to awake memories you didn’t think were still so vivid.

Michaud, Hunter’s Trap (2014)

Anne Michaud, Hunter’s Trap. Sad Ghost Press, 2014. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-1-501008-82-5. $15.99 pb/$3.99 e.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Hunter’s Trap, written by Ann Michaud and published by Sad Ghost Press, is a blood-chilling paranormal thriller unveiling secret dangers and ghostly inhabitants hidden in a snowy wood. Brothers Dayton and Jeremy, aged 17 and 12, investigate what happened to their father, who went out few days earlier for a hunting trip with his friends and never come back, the group of men seeming to have vanished into thin air. Michaud moves smoothly between genres, convincingly mixing elements that belongs to adventure, thriller, and ghost stories, sewing them together with impeccable prose. Unlike other thrillers or mystery stories, where the plot simply leads to the single, final twist or unsuspected truth, Hunter’s Trap offers a more complex and interesting approach.