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rocketiza's review against another edition
2.0
Well it did have some good selections, I found most of the stories to be mediocre to skipable.
daynpitseleh's review against another edition
3.0
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a decent collection of short stories, but it didn't really grab me. There weren't any stories that really stuck out to me or authors that I immediately needed to read more of. It's a good collection but it just wasn't quite enough.
This was a decent collection of short stories, but it didn't really grab me. There weren't any stories that really stuck out to me or authors that I immediately needed to read more of. It's a good collection but it just wasn't quite enough.
vangluss's review against another edition
2.0
This is an okay read. It is okay read to the point where I would pick at least two or three of the super solid shorts within this collection to share with somebody else, hoping like hell they would read them and enjoy them as much as I did. On the other hand, most of the stories did absolutely nothing for me or are forgettable to the point I felt like my time got wasted. This is my general experience with anthologies of any kind, hence my bias for long form storytelling over other forms. But with this, I seriously felt like I was spinning a giant literary roulette wheel packed with segments that siphoned my time/effort away instead of giving me something to appreciate.
The first problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Broadness of the Theme/Content
I went into reading this collection blind as I could be. This is so come in with a mind full of minimal preconceptions to color my reading. Beyond knowing a few of the heavy hitters included here like The Gaiman, Peter Watts, or Catherynne M. Valente, I didn't know what to expect content-wise. This didn't matter to me much either. I like to see if lesser known authors can fly on my radar because everybody benefits from that. But the more pressing concern about this selection of authors is that they seemed to write all over the place about the quality of being "monstrous" as was described in the introduction. Throughout my reading of this collection, I realized I was being consistently surprised and confused in ways I didn't want to. I felt like there was no cohesion or "higher linking" between the stories despite their goal of being about inhumanity/monstrous. Alone, like I said, a decent amount of the shorts were quite tolerable. But together, the stories were disjointed and jarring like mixing cough drops in your hard candy dish for some godawful reason.
The second problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Overwhelming "Artiness" of the Stories of this Collection
Art is good writing. Good writing is art. And by this axiom, we should all live by. But when trying to go too abstract with your writing to make it more artistic, I think that hurts the quality of both the art and the writing. Every so often I came upon stories that made me incredibly confused not because of their bad writing (the writing of all the stories were serviceable btw), but because of their highly experimental writing style. I'll list a few examples later for easier reading. I don't think society or individuals should make a hobby of trying to breakdown and comprehend art to its basic components like its biochemistry or something. But if there's one thing any writer/artist "should" try to do, is that they should at least make their creation have at least the vague shape of what they're trying to communicate. A lot of the stories in this collection did some bad communication. Then again (!!!), as a slight disclaimer, I'm generally biased against more experimental/artistically inclined writing styles.
Now time for the general listings.
DID NOT ENJOY:
"Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe Lansdale (Hitting your audience with a barrage of racial slurs and nightmarish violence usually don't work unless you're Tarantino. Usually.)
"Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream" by Maria Dahvana Headley.
"And Love Shall Have No Dominion" by Livia Llewllyn (I skipped this one tbh)
"Theories of Pain" by Rose Lemberg (This one felt like it was trying too hard to be emotional, but came off as awkward and confusing)
IT WAS OKAY:
"Tasting Gomoa" by Chinelo Onwualu (While good, I was confused how this related to the overarching monstrous theme)
"Dead Sea Fruit" by Kaaron Warren
"Muo-ka's Child" by Indrapramit Das (Wanted to like this after reading the Devourers, came out disappointed and confused)
"Six" by Leah Bobet
"In Winter" by Sofia Samatar
"The Nazir" by Sofia Samatar
"Boyfriend And Shark" by Berit Ellingsen
"Out They Come" by Alex Dally MacFarlane
"Terrible Lizards" by Meghan McCarron
IT WAS NICE:
"If You Were a Dinosaur, my Love" by Rachel Swirsky (Oddly touching and unexpected.)
"The Horse Latitudes" by Sunny Moraine
"Never the Same" by Polenth Blake
"Mantis Wives" by Kiji Johnson (One of the artier shorts I liked for how bizarre and ero-guro it was)
"Proboscis" by Laird Barron (Solid prose and characters and story, but the ending left me saying, "Wait, what next?" in a bad way.)
"You Go Where It Takes You" by Nathan Ballingrud (Nice, uneasy atmosphere throughout.)
IT WAS INCREDIBLE:
"The Bread We Eat in Dreams" by Catherynne M. Valente
"The Things" by Peter Watts
"The Emperor's Old Bones" by Gemma Files (One of my absolute favorites from this collection.)
"A Handful of Earth" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee (The setting/background density made this a harder read, but I'd like to see how it works in a full length novel - if it already isn't, that is)
"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman
"Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" by A.C. Wise (Absolutely packed with beautiful imagery and emotional depth)
The first problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Broadness of the Theme/Content
I went into reading this collection blind as I could be. This is so come in with a mind full of minimal preconceptions to color my reading. Beyond knowing a few of the heavy hitters included here like The Gaiman, Peter Watts, or Catherynne M. Valente, I didn't know what to expect content-wise. This didn't matter to me much either. I like to see if lesser known authors can fly on my radar because everybody benefits from that. But the more pressing concern about this selection of authors is that they seemed to write all over the place about the quality of being "monstrous" as was described in the introduction. Throughout my reading of this collection, I realized I was being consistently surprised and confused in ways I didn't want to. I felt like there was no cohesion or "higher linking" between the stories despite their goal of being about inhumanity/monstrous. Alone, like I said, a decent amount of the shorts were quite tolerable. But together, the stories were disjointed and jarring like mixing cough drops in your hard candy dish for some godawful reason.
The second problem that adds to my initial experience above: The Overwhelming "Artiness" of the Stories of this Collection
Art is good writing. Good writing is art. And by this axiom, we should all live by. But when trying to go too abstract with your writing to make it more artistic, I think that hurts the quality of both the art and the writing. Every so often I came upon stories that made me incredibly confused not because of their bad writing (the writing of all the stories were serviceable btw), but because of their highly experimental writing style. I'll list a few examples later for easier reading. I don't think society or individuals should make a hobby of trying to breakdown and comprehend art to its basic components like its biochemistry or something. But if there's one thing any writer/artist "should" try to do, is that they should at least make their creation have at least the vague shape of what they're trying to communicate. A lot of the stories in this collection did some bad communication. Then again (!!!), as a slight disclaimer, I'm generally biased against more experimental/artistically inclined writing styles.
Now time for the general listings.
DID NOT ENJOY:
"Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe Lansdale (Hitting your audience with a barrage of racial slurs and nightmarish violence usually don't work unless you're Tarantino. Usually.)
"Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream" by Maria Dahvana Headley.
"And Love Shall Have No Dominion" by Livia Llewllyn (I skipped this one tbh)
"Theories of Pain" by Rose Lemberg (This one felt like it was trying too hard to be emotional, but came off as awkward and confusing)
IT WAS OKAY:
"Tasting Gomoa" by Chinelo Onwualu (While good, I was confused how this related to the overarching monstrous theme)
"Dead Sea Fruit" by Kaaron Warren
"Muo-ka's Child" by Indrapramit Das (Wanted to like this after reading the Devourers, came out disappointed and confused)
"Six" by Leah Bobet
"In Winter" by Sofia Samatar
"The Nazir" by Sofia Samatar
"Boyfriend And Shark" by Berit Ellingsen
"Out They Come" by Alex Dally MacFarlane
"Terrible Lizards" by Meghan McCarron
IT WAS NICE:
"If You Were a Dinosaur, my Love" by Rachel Swirsky (Oddly touching and unexpected.)
"The Horse Latitudes" by Sunny Moraine
"Never the Same" by Polenth Blake
"Mantis Wives" by Kiji Johnson (One of the artier shorts I liked for how bizarre and ero-guro it was)
"Proboscis" by Laird Barron (Solid prose and characters and story, but the ending left me saying, "Wait, what next?" in a bad way.)
"You Go Where It Takes You" by Nathan Ballingrud (Nice, uneasy atmosphere throughout.)
IT WAS INCREDIBLE:
"The Bread We Eat in Dreams" by Catherynne M. Valente
"The Things" by Peter Watts
"The Emperor's Old Bones" by Gemma Files (One of my absolute favorites from this collection.)
"A Handful of Earth" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee (The setting/background density made this a harder read, but I'd like to see how it works in a full length novel - if it already isn't, that is)
"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman
"Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" by A.C. Wise (Absolutely packed with beautiful imagery and emotional depth)
smorancie's review against another edition
2.0
Like any anthology, there are some winners and some real stinkers. I ended up skipping a few because they just were not my style and I few I wish I hadn't read (TW:
Spoiler
child abandonment for no good reason other than selfishness).alexanderpaez's review against another edition
2.0
Creo que como antología no funciona. Se trata de un popurrí de relatos supuestamente de terror, con nombres interesantes como Yoon Ha Lee, Neil Gaiman, Peter Watts o Laird Barron o Gemma Files. No la recomiendo como antología, aunque si recomiendo los relatos de los autores antes mencionados (leer por separado, ya que en una antología no pegan ni con cola). Y algún otro que me ha llamado la atención.
intoxicatedcake's review against another edition
4.0
I did not read every story. I skimmed a couple others. But the effect of the book was full force; seeing the alternative viewpoints, those that might be considered inhuman (or at least unorthodox). It's a delight to be challenged this way, with the different arguments and expoundations on certain themes or premisies. That I could not get into every story does not bother me, the combination I did get through were sufficient to be challenged, and for that it is a worthwhile read.
lilyn_g's review
4.0
I think The Humanity Of Monsters has a little bit of something in it for everyone who enjoys horror and/or scifi stories, and includes some introductions to authors that I, personally, can’t wait to read more from. It has more strengths than weaknesses, and gave me a few pleasant hours.
Click here to see my full review.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Click here to see my full review.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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