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pearseanderson's review
2.0
This was not a good book, which really disappointed me. It had such good cover art, he had such Datlow praise, and I am trustworthy of Undertow Publications. But.
Let's do like a pro/con thing I guess?
Pro: O'Driscoll knows his way around the horror/weird community. He clearly is in with the people, up to date (maybe during the '90s) on the genres, and seems to be a kind addition to this world.
Con: some of these stories drop you into niche cultures, like the horror anthology world, with a tone that seems annoying, like "ooh, look who I can name-drop" rather than "look at how this world is like your world, reader."
Pro: O'Driscoll sets the majority of his stories in Wales, an area he clearly knows well.
Con: way too many of his characters' names start with C. I got mixed up numerous, numerous times. They're all Welsh men kind of fumbling around and in retrospect I find it difficult to think of personality traits, only character decisions. Those are not synonymous.
Furthermore, a lot of this men spend large sections of the story trying to remember things. That can be done in an interesting way (see: Blade Runner 2049), but here it is done as a passive activity. Like, he describes them sitting down and thinking. Christ, talk about passivity. Not only is that not compelling, but because so much of the story is unremembered or obscured when you start it off, it's incredibly difficult to feel grounded, or like you understand the plot. "The Entire City" is a perfect example of this. For the first third, O'Driscoll uses at least four different points of view on a non-linear timeline trying to remember various plot points while possibly supernatural elements swing through the rafters. That might be able to be pulled off in a multi-million dollar production by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, but WestWorld took 10 hours to get to the inciting incident and O'Driscoll used a confusing novelette to push through something. I still don't understand "The Entire City." I had to force myself to get through it and it was not worth it. What happened? Some people ran around and met at a bar? OK.
Pro: "The Rediscovering of Death" is a great story. I thoroughly enjoyed the plot development and the mystery surrounding the stories. O'Driscoll does a nice bit about summarizing each of them, which was fun too.
Con: Every other story was unsatisfying. Maybe "A Zero at the Bone" straddled this line, but pieces like "Beasts of Season" and "One Last Wild Waltz" really didn't do anything for me. I finished them and I asked myself 'why does this piece exist, other than to be mediumly spoopy' and I was unable to think about larger emotions I felt or themes I connected to. B-plots went nowhere, characters remained flat, and by midway in many (most?) of the stories, I sat back, checked how many pages were left, and decided I should finish it not because I enjoyed it, but because I didn't want to not follow through with a task. That should not be my attitude with reading horror. That's a sign that many things aren't working. And when I did finally finish, I was never satisfied. "The Spaceman?" What was the point of all that? Ah!
Pro: O'Driscoll's work with mental health, trauma, and rehabilitation come through in slices of the stories and were really interesting in the odd moments he brought them up. I would have liked to see more there.
Con: the voice and style doesn't strike me as particularly beautiful, engaging, or interesting. I always felt like the timelines were wonky or misunderstood (by me) in many of the stories. I needed more hooks in the beginnings, more female characters that weren't romantic interests, more up-front answers when I feel they're deserved. Nothing strikes me as particularly well-done, at best alright.
I hope to pick up more O'Driscoll in a coastal horror anthology or a collection of cult novellas in a couple of years. I hope he sticks with me more then, because right now I would not recommend this book.
Let's do like a pro/con thing I guess?
Pro: O'Driscoll knows his way around the horror/weird community. He clearly is in with the people, up to date (maybe during the '90s) on the genres, and seems to be a kind addition to this world.
Con: some of these stories drop you into niche cultures, like the horror anthology world, with a tone that seems annoying, like "ooh, look who I can name-drop" rather than "look at how this world is like your world, reader."
Pro: O'Driscoll sets the majority of his stories in Wales, an area he clearly knows well.
Con: way too many of his characters' names start with C. I got mixed up numerous, numerous times. They're all Welsh men kind of fumbling around and in retrospect I find it difficult to think of personality traits, only character decisions. Those are not synonymous.
Furthermore, a lot of this men spend large sections of the story trying to remember things. That can be done in an interesting way (see: Blade Runner 2049), but here it is done as a passive activity. Like, he describes them sitting down and thinking. Christ, talk about passivity. Not only is that not compelling, but because so much of the story is unremembered or obscured when you start it off, it's incredibly difficult to feel grounded, or like you understand the plot. "The Entire City" is a perfect example of this. For the first third, O'Driscoll uses at least four different points of view on a non-linear timeline trying to remember various plot points while possibly supernatural elements swing through the rafters. That might be able to be pulled off in a multi-million dollar production by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, but WestWorld took 10 hours to get to the inciting incident and O'Driscoll used a confusing novelette to push through something. I still don't understand "The Entire City." I had to force myself to get through it and it was not worth it. What happened? Some people ran around and met at a bar? OK.
Pro: "The Rediscovering of Death" is a great story. I thoroughly enjoyed the plot development and the mystery surrounding the stories. O'Driscoll does a nice bit about summarizing each of them, which was fun too.
Con: Every other story was unsatisfying. Maybe "A Zero at the Bone" straddled this line, but pieces like "Beasts of Season" and "One Last Wild Waltz" really didn't do anything for me. I finished them and I asked myself 'why does this piece exist, other than to be mediumly spoopy' and I was unable to think about larger emotions I felt or themes I connected to. B-plots went nowhere, characters remained flat, and by midway in many (most?) of the stories, I sat back, checked how many pages were left, and decided I should finish it not because I enjoyed it, but because I didn't want to not follow through with a task. That should not be my attitude with reading horror. That's a sign that many things aren't working. And when I did finally finish, I was never satisfied. "The Spaceman?" What was the point of all that? Ah!
Pro: O'Driscoll's work with mental health, trauma, and rehabilitation come through in slices of the stories and were really interesting in the odd moments he brought them up. I would have liked to see more there.
Con: the voice and style doesn't strike me as particularly beautiful, engaging, or interesting. I always felt like the timelines were wonky or misunderstood (by me) in many of the stories. I needed more hooks in the beginnings, more female characters that weren't romantic interests, more up-front answers when I feel they're deserved. Nothing strikes me as particularly well-done, at best alright.
I hope to pick up more O'Driscoll in a coastal horror anthology or a collection of cult novellas in a couple of years. I hope he sticks with me more then, because right now I would not recommend this book.
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