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tregina's review against another edition
3.0
Wanted to read the collection I already had before moving on to this year's! There's certainly nothing wrong with this, it's fine, but usually the Wilde Stories collection gets me all kinds of fired up and this one just didn't connect, for the most part.
anna_hepworth's review against another edition
2.0
I found this book to be patchy at best, and a number of the stories have characters I really was not invested in. I like the conceit that all the stories have gay characters featuring prominently, but several of the stories themselves (and the characters too) where just unpleasant in ways that didn't seem to be necessary. I didn't pick the book to read gritty literary fiction, I picked it because it said "best speculative fiction", a genre I read widely in, and with great pleasure. While there are some great stories I do not recommend this collection to anyone. Some brief commentary on the stories:
1. Love will tear us apart (Alaya Dawn Johnson) - I love the subtlety of this story. The hints at the underlying idea, the cute pop culture references in the section headings, the pacing of the romance, and the family interactions. This is a great start to the collection.
2. Map of seventeen (Christopher Barzak) - prickly teenage protagonist, small country town, big brother brings his boyfriend home. Hard going to read, a little tedious, but the payoff is worth it. Unfortunately, this was one of the stories where I did not like any of the characters.
3. How to make friends in seventh grade (Nick Poniatowski) - another unlovable viewpoint character. Another secondary character who gets emotionally tortured by them. I might have found this story easier to read if it hadn't been placed immediately after Map of Seventeen, a story it is just too similar to in tone. Again, like Map of Seventeen, while the story itself irritated, I loved the ending.
4. Mortis Persona (Barbara A Barnett) - beautiful world building, lovely writing. This is a finely crafted story of a love that lasts beyond death.
5. Mysterium Tremendum (Laird Barron) - yuck. It might be that this could be read as a "just deserts for the wicked story", but for me it was just a nauseating story of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, with a faintly supernatural aroma.
6. Oneirica (Hal Duncan) - no real comment. I did not understand this as a story or a metaphor.
7. Lifeblood (Jeffrey A Ricker) - a lovely story about boy meets vampire. Or possibly vampire meets boy. A sweet but sad story of love and loss.
8. Waiting for the phone to ring (Richard Bowes) - this one manages the right kind of creepy, unpleasant characters, in a story that revolves around one long dead individual. And how do you live, with someone who can read your mind?
9. Blazon (Peter DubМ©) - meh. A story that is a metaphor about a metaphor of coming of age and sexual awakening.
10. All the shadows (Joel Lane); 11. The noise (Richard Larson); 12. How to make a clown (Jeremy C Shipp) 13. Beach blanket spaceship (Sandra McDonald) - mercifully short. By this point of the book I was unwilling to read anything where I hated the narrator, or where everything was unpleasant, or where the story appeared to be a hallucinatory mess.
14. Hothouse flowers: or the discrete boys of Dr Barnabas (Chaz Brenchley) - nicely done Gothic horror, isolated mansion and all. A reasonable story to end a collection on.
I recommend one, four, seven, fourteen, and maybe eight.
1. Love will tear us apart (Alaya Dawn Johnson) - I love the subtlety of this story. The hints at the underlying idea, the cute pop culture references in the section headings, the pacing of the romance, and the family interactions. This is a great start to the collection.
2. Map of seventeen (Christopher Barzak) - prickly teenage protagonist, small country town, big brother brings his boyfriend home. Hard going to read, a little tedious, but the payoff is worth it. Unfortunately, this was one of the stories where I did not like any of the characters.
3. How to make friends in seventh grade (Nick Poniatowski) - another unlovable viewpoint character. Another secondary character who gets emotionally tortured by them. I might have found this story easier to read if it hadn't been placed immediately after Map of Seventeen, a story it is just too similar to in tone. Again, like Map of Seventeen, while the story itself irritated, I loved the ending.
4. Mortis Persona (Barbara A Barnett) - beautiful world building, lovely writing. This is a finely crafted story of a love that lasts beyond death.
5. Mysterium Tremendum (Laird Barron) - yuck. It might be that this could be read as a "just deserts for the wicked story", but for me it was just a nauseating story of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, with a faintly supernatural aroma.
6. Oneirica (Hal Duncan) - no real comment. I did not understand this as a story or a metaphor.
7. Lifeblood (Jeffrey A Ricker) - a lovely story about boy meets vampire. Or possibly vampire meets boy. A sweet but sad story of love and loss.
8. Waiting for the phone to ring (Richard Bowes) - this one manages the right kind of creepy, unpleasant characters, in a story that revolves around one long dead individual. And how do you live, with someone who can read your mind?
9. Blazon (Peter DubМ©) - meh. A story that is a metaphor about a metaphor of coming of age and sexual awakening.
10. All the shadows (Joel Lane); 11. The noise (Richard Larson); 12. How to make a clown (Jeremy C Shipp) 13. Beach blanket spaceship (Sandra McDonald) - mercifully short. By this point of the book I was unwilling to read anything where I hated the narrator, or where everything was unpleasant, or where the story appeared to be a hallucinatory mess.
14. Hothouse flowers: or the discrete boys of Dr Barnabas (Chaz Brenchley) - nicely done Gothic horror, isolated mansion and all. A reasonable story to end a collection on.
I recommend one, four, seven, fourteen, and maybe eight.
abetterbradley's review against another edition
4.0
This is a collection of gay fiction that delves more into the fantasy/supernatural side of things. I really enjoyed Christopher Barzak's "Map Of Seventeen", Jeffrey A. Ricker's "Lifeblood", Richard Larson's "The Noise" and Sandra McDonald's "Beach Blanket Spaceship".
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