Reviews

Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction by Steve Berman, Joel Lane, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ricker, Nick Poniatowski, Chaz Brenchley, Sandra McDonald, Jeremy C. Shipp, Peter Dubé, Laird Barron, Richard Larson, Chris Barzak, Richard Bowes, Barbara A. Barnett, Alaya Dawn Johnson

tregina's review

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.

celli's review

3.0

Man, it's so hard to rate story collections!

I will say that my favorites were "How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade" by Nick Poniatowski, "Lifeblood" by Jeffrey A. Ricker, and "Beach Blanket Spaceship" by Sandra McDonald. The longest story, "Mysterium Tremendum" by Laird Barron, did not work for me at all. And if you have sexual assault trigger issues, I would skip "The Noise" by Richard Larson, or at least read with care.

dee2799d's review

4.0

Probably one of the strongest anthologies I've ever read in a really long time. I literally have no idea who the writers are (well, I know Hal Duncan, but that's about it), but I must look out for their work in the future.

"Mysterium Tremendum" by Laird Barron is actually one of my favourites: I can't even tell you how it works, but it reminds me a bit of M.R. James's stories (except gay, and with a lot of violence). I slept with the lights on, I'm not even ashamed to admit. :P