A review by claireviolet
The Pleasure in Pain: A Queer Horrortica Anthology by Roxie Voorhees

3.5

The Pleasure in Pain promises to be an unguarded exploration of queerness through twenty five stories filled of, what else, but pleasure and pain.

Like many collections, this one is a mixed bag.   I find that horror and erotica tend to be the most divisive genres, as what scares you is just as personal as what excites you. I definitely experienced that here, and it’s always an interesting experience to run into writing that you find very skillfully crafted that doesn’t actually do anything for you. I kept a personally running talley of ratings story by story and at the end, the overall rating for me sat at 3.24. This is one of those times where a three star rating covers a ranged experience. I found stories I loved, stories I loathed, stories I was indifferent about, and stories I loved and loathed that tore me back and forth. 

When the stories in this anthology aren’t doing horror and erotica, they tend to just steer towards erotica. This on its own is fine, but the promise of horror, not erotica, was what grabbed my interest. The majority of the horror is body horror which both makes sense considering pleasure’s relationship with the body and happens to be a personal favorite subgenre of mine. 

Structure matters a lot to me for anthologies and I found myself frustrated here. For the most part, there tends to break between longer stories with poems but there’s a wide range of fantasy, historical and contemporary fiction mixed in with the horror and erotica that doesn’t seem to be ordered in any meaningful way. When the same subgenre does line up for stories, sometimes you end up with very similar themes back to back that can blur together. I think the opening story, while enjoyable, is not the one I would have picked to go first in this collection. Some of the strongest examples of craft are followed up by the weakest which will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

My personal standouts were Graphite by Amanda M. Blake, I WANDER THE EARTH LONGING TO TASTE YOUR BEATING HEART by Minh-Anh Vo Dinh, Mantis by Dori Lumpkin, and What They Don’t Tell You About The Mummy’s Curse by Anton Cancre.

I think all of these thread the needle of queer erotic horror in memorable ways that invite examination from the reader if they so desire. Graphite is probably my favorite, and it happens to be the house from the blurb that made me interested in the collection.

Overall I enjoyed my time reading this anthology. All of these authors are new to me, and I’m looking forward to seeking some of them out for further reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Dragon's Roost Press for the eARC.