if we be frthrow me some beads, bitchez—i came to party.
[image] OMG NEW LILLIS!!! I HAZ AN EXCITE!!!!!!!
*shakes tits happily*
ok, here's what i thought:
if we be friends, by j.c. lillis. both darkly hilarious and sweetly whimsical, this short packs in feelz of all stripes. i'd have gone for the traditional suburban dance-battur instead of what turned out to be a wonderfully clever soliloquy-off, but i suppose that's one reason why j.c. lillis is j.c. lillis and i am picking lint out of my belly button right now. truly, a delightful story. four stars.
touched, by roan parrish. really kind of unpleasantly overwritten at the outset, with a number of unsuccessful similes jumbled up together senselessly—and yet i was nonetheless engrossed by the wonderfully rich atmosphere and authentic feel to the setting. i enjoyed myself more and more as the story went on and despite that wobbly beginning and a frankly unsatisfying ending, i found the creepy detours and haunting revelations to be richly rewarding. three stars.
masked, by j.r. gray. ouf. the polite way to put it would be to mumble about craft issues, but that's not happening here. this story is under-baked, with lots of grating repetitions, awkward syntax, and every mm cliche ever. couldn't get through the whole thing without a rage-quit, particularly once getting condoms became a plot point. why not three pages on whether they tied their shoes properly, too? and i dunno what those betas were doing, but they sure weren't reminding the author that brazil has more than one city in it. would have been nice if this story had been set in any one of them in particular. one star.
the queen's reflection, by kris ripper. a clunky and slightly illogical start proved no great impediment here, as eventually i found myself completely engrossed in what was a heartfelt and deeply satisfying story about what it's like to find yourself in the kind embrace of strangers who see you as you are, and not just as you appear to be. got me right in the feelz—twice—and then again smack in the middle of my junk during an incredibly erotic ménage—also twice. three boners stars.
hurricane, by santino hassell. DNR. no rating.
please note my rating is not an average, but the highest rating attained by any particular story in the anthology, so as not to unfairly punish good stories with the ratings earned by bad ones....more
excesses in voice and lapses in copy editing and proofing proved extremely distracting, while obvious parallels to current pop-culture touchstones were sometimes as unintentionally funny as they were effective at defining the focus of the story.
and yet despite this indifferent execution i found myself occasionally both entranced and moved by a carousel of memorable side-characters, sliding in and out of the narrative like clever stage props, to leave their mark on what turns out to be—in the main—a lovely story.
for instance, the culture of the cabaret, while almost carelessly rendered, nonetheless so strongly reminded me of the doomed love affair in baz lurmann's moulin rouge that i arrived at this story’s ending already singing the wistful chorus of rufus wainwright’s version of complainte de la butte:
the stairway up to la butte can make the wretched sigh
while windmill wings of the moulin shelter you and i
imperfect, like my singing voice. but simultaneously bleak and lovely, like my memories of that film. two stars.
...yikes. at least hall's slapdash story had a plot, even if it was dangerously close to I Stalk Because I Care.
this one is a series of lectures that were so crushingly dull i fell asleep on three separate occasions trying to read it.
no plot. nothing happens. just, you know, conversations, and then The End.
the fourth time i treated it like assigned reading, grimly working my way through a number of after-school specials that appeared to be chiefly concerned with whether this dragon shifter teen would be allowed to be an accountant in his dragon-shifter village of dragon-shifter warriors and dragon-shifter croftsmen and whatnot.
[idek, i never got why they were all there or who they were supposedly there to guard or what; i was just too thrilled to have gotten through it at all on the fourth try to bother with picking obvious nits.]
but man, this one was brutal.
i mean, the overriding message here was literally 'yes, you can be a dragon-shifter accountant! follow your heart!'
which.
like.
...wut?
dragons have long been famed for their ability to value gems and precious metals, but tax planning—that's the stuff, amirite?
meanwhile, in the land of stories that make actual sense, you got every teenager in the history of ever like OMG I DON'T WANT TO BE AN ACCOUNTANT WHY CAN'T I JUST BE A DRAGON? one star.
you know a short story is good when your pleasure in it is only matched by your desperate unhappiness when it ends.
every scene hinges on an achingly familiar dynamic i remember from my own terribly awkward and tempestuous youth, and to see these things written so deftly and with such compassion was to feel as if i'd been given the warmest hug.
written with respect, too.
vanessa north never makes the mistake of pretending a teenager is unaware of sex, or of how sex can be fun, or an exploration, or a promise of love. and because these characters are in this way authentic—real to me—they feel as much like bits of myself as they feel like my friends.
i'm not autistic. and i'm not a bisexual goth with a tongue-piercing, nervously licking his lips.
but reading this story made me forget i wasn't—and for a few glorious pages i was living in the skin of those two boys and of my former self as intensely as i live in this old bag of bones now. five stars....more
an adventurous selection of spec-fic deliciousness with what turns out to be the most diversity goodness i've gotten in one place since wheee!
[image]
an adventurous selection of spec-fic deliciousness with what turns out to be the most diversity goodness i've gotten in one place since prosperity gave me a braingasm for having a rapscallion black MC.
as far as individual stories:
Dim Sum Asylum, Ford.
oh my word. what a dreadful choice to open with. kinetic and full of intriguing details, but in prose so painfully jarring it was like a sack of pots kicked down a flight of stairs. one star.
Swift and the Black Dog, Hale.
ah, now we're talking. hale is in typically fine form here, but i found the language a little unpolished and the density of imagery too high. i'd have liked this to be a little longer and the themes and movements to have been a little more spread-out, because all in a torrent like this it felt too grim, melodramatic, and intense, only to suddenly pivot at the very last moment into an HEA that felt unearned. but maaaaaaan the elements are all here, otherwise—a terrific novelette in a fascinating world. three stars.
A Queer Trade, Charles.
let's face it, i'm pretty much a diversity whore at this point; flash me a bit of brown skin and my legs just fly right open. which is not to say that i enjoyed this story just for that reason—it was also an effortlessly pleasant read with lines that flowed beautifully from one joke to another, sliding into sexual tension so natural and effective i found myself unconsciously fingering my butthole. four stars.
Magically Delicious, Kimberling.
bright, funny, and charming. a bit too much exposition now and again, but overall a wonderfully engaging mini-mystery with a sweet and sure touch. the leprechauns were my favorite. three stars.
Everyone's Afraid of Clowns, Price.
wistful and nostalgic, and full of those wonderful little details that make her psycop series such a joy to read. it was especially good to see jacob's character on display and having a role in the plot. fun, tense, and satisfying. four stars.
The Soldati Prince, Cochet.
childish, silly, senseless, and that sex scene at the end was indifferent, at best. and then the whole affair was preempted by a chunk of clumsy exposition. i wasn't going to say this, but i wanted to—and then somebody even more horrible than me did us all a favor. one star.
One Hex Too Many, Harper.
another cozy mystery spiced with a bit of dark magic. lusciously moody, fun, and engaging. i may have missed something, but the question of fox's sexuality had no satisfactory answer. three stars.
The Thirteenth Hex, Hawk.
a light and airy bonbon with lots of delightful characterization and very little sense. sparkly historical fun so long as you don't happen to know that a trip to the beach from manhattan can take up to two hours by train—not an hour by horse. a willful miscommunication in the early going drove me up a wall, but the explicit connection between magic and geometry was truly inspired. three stars.
Josh of the Damned vs. the Bathroom of Doom, Speed.
this story annoyed me, as it was clearly intended as a between-novels-in-an-existing-series bonus vignette, but without any of the courtesies one might reasonably expect towards people who have not read the series. that's fine—to be honest, the prose and the characterization were both well above par—but there appeared to be no plot whatsoever. i deduce i am simply unaware of the ins and outs and dogwhistle easter eggs for those as what read the series, because the writing itself was assured and polished. i just had no idea what it was all for. two stars.
The Trouble With Hexes, Amara.
a fine selection to close out the anthology. measured and fully developed, with lovely pacing and a bit of chew to the mystery. some odd lapses in tone and prose now and again, but overall an engrossing read with a nice denouement. three stars.
anthology rating for highest-rated contributions. rating is not an average....more
this was a three star story until around the fourth page—when the last of the exactly two clues you needed to piece together tlovely, yet very slight.
this was a three star story until around the fourth page—when the last of the exactly two clues you needed to piece together the solution to the mystery was slipped into the narrative.
it annoyed me to know for the entirety of the remaining story what the characters hadn't yet realized.
still.
aside from what has become characteristic hyperbole during the sex—erupting waves of flooding et cetera—amy rae durresson once again demonstrates a natural gift for creating immediately compelling characters.
jasper made my heart hurt six different ways, and all on account of tiny details that revealed his tragic history well before valentine's internal monologue spelled it out.
a deft bit of character-work, there—which seems, much more than comically florid sex scenes, to be ms. durreson's calling card.
like valentine for his jasper, I'm a fan—flaws and all....more
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