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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really interesting riff on the changeling myth.
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A young girl goes missing, and something else comes back... Yikes. I wasn't expecting this to be as tense as it was. I'm not sure I understood the idea of a "Mr Underhill" very well, or why the kid needed to do what she did, but... The tension. The ending. The emotional resignation. Really well written stuff.
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
TW: Graphic blood, body horror, child death, death, gore, kidnapping, torture.violence.Moderate cursing.
I read this in the Best of Tor dot com 2016.
What happens to the children that disappear? What happens to the ones that return? Creepy without being grossed out. The characters and are believable..
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping
Moderate: Cursing
Very readable, but needs some technical and narrative refinement to be good. Very refreshing, to see an original piece of Irish writing from someone other than Caitlin R. Kiernan and Seanan McGuire.
An interesting, horrifying short story. Only issue with it was its predictability.
Read it for free on Tor here.
Read it for free on Tor here.
I loved this short story.
It was delightfully creepy (but not too creepy for me) and the writing was pure delight.
I'm clearly going to have to look into reading other works by Angela Slatter. I love Irish folklore, I love creepy-but-not-too-creepy, I love beautiful prose. I want more. :)
In Finnegan’s Field, South Australia (POP. 15,000), the inhabitants had more than enough Irish left in their souls that, despite a century and a half since emigration, they bore these losses with sorrow, yes, but also with more than a little acceptance. A sort of shrug that said, Well, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it? Eire’s soft green sadness with its inherited expectation of grief ran in their veins so they did little more than acquiesce, and they certainly did not seek explanations.
It was delightfully creepy (but not too creepy for me) and the writing was pure delight.
...every single thing she spotted was something that was off. Something about the way the girl moved; if Anne squinted, she seemed to see a ghostly outline around her daughter. A shadow-shape that was slightly larger than Madrigal and a split second slower, as if just out of synch so that when she swung about, ran, jumped, and skipped, there was the blur like a butterfly’s wing in her wake, but only for the slenderest of moments.
I'm clearly going to have to look into reading other works by Angela Slatter. I love Irish folklore, I love creepy-but-not-too-creepy, I love beautiful prose. I want more. :)