Jess Hyslop, Miasma (Luna Novella #16). Luna Press Publishing, 2022. Pp. 108. ISBN 978-1-915556-01-1. $11.99 pb/$5.99 e.
Reviewed by Zachary Gillan
Jess Hyslop’s Miasma is a book that I wish had been around when I was younger. It’s a novella that would have fit nicely in the fantasy works of the 1990s that I spent my teenage years reading, but with a revisionist approach. It takes a variety of elements any reader of secondary world fantasies will recognize—knights, mages, monstrous lizards, a dangerous swamp—and reworks them into something fresh for the 2020s. Part of Luna Press’s novella series, Miasma clocks in at just under 100 pages, but Hyslop doesn’t waste any of them, wisely choosing not to pad this out to a standard novel length. It has a story and it tells it, directly, forthrightly, with well-drawn human stakes. There’s no saving the world, no prophecies or chosen ones, just a family trying to survive.
The Dark is a monthly online zine famous for both its excellent dark fiction output and its stringent and remarkably rapid rejections—indeed, while I was working on this review a tweet went somewhat viral from an author irate that they had rejected his manuscript three minutes after he submitted it. It’s a leading venue for modern horror fiction that favors atmosphere over gore, and provides a home both for the big names of the genre and relative newcomers. All four stories in the September 2022 issue are strong entries. Stylistically, they share a clear, realist voice, with rather straightforward narratives. There are flashbacks, and the smartly-paced unveiling of details necessary for the genre, but none are overly experimental or knotty in approach.