Reviews
A fantastic collection, immensely varied and full of surprises. There were so many stories that I refrained from reading it all at once, preferring to experience no more than a couple at a time in order to devote more emotions to each one. This collection was impressively inventive: age-old Lovecraftian tropes and themes lifted and dropped in new worlds, reworked seamlessly into hitherto unexpected situations. Proving once again the irresistible pull of the unfathomable, the power of the mind-altering horror-epiphany of that which stretches and snaps the elastic human imagination. My favourite writers did not fail to justify anticipation (Caitlin R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman) and I discovered new ones. The dark horses were the best, names you had never known and might never notice again had you never set one bare foot to dip into their world. The second last story ("Mongoose" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette) was so fascinating that it is with some shame I admit I ignored the final one, intent on letting those feelings of awe conveyed in shivers assist this reader's resurfacing to a duller world. Favourites: Pickman's Other Model (Caitlin R. Kiernan), Bad Sushi (Cherie Priest), A Study in Emerald (Neil Gaiman), Lesser Demons (Norman Patridge; I really loved the use of distinctive character voice in this one), Details (China Mieville), Mongoose (Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette)
