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Reviews
The New Flesh: A Literary Tribute to David Cronenberg by Kathe Koja, Brendan Vidito, Sam Richard
lolinyakitty's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
michellehogmire's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
motherhorror's review
3.0
Review originally published in SCREAM Magazine issue 59 March/April 2020
Looking for an anthology that promises a wild ride? It doesn’t get any weirder than THE NEW FLESH. A collection of 19 stories written as an homage to director, David Cronenberg, this diverse selection of authors combine voices to assemble a veritable banquet of the bizarre.
Many of the stories teeter on the edge of being grotesque to the point of offense so I would hedge a bet that not every, single, story is going to appeal to one reader. It’s also my opinion that this isn’t a deep literary dive and some of the stories telegraph that they don’t want to be taken too seriously.
There were some that I skipped after a few pages but there were others I got completely lost in. The first story, A BAD PATCH by Brian Evenson is effective storytelling and relies on a compelling story to provide good reader engagement through the protagonist’s growing paranoia (and growing stomach) proving that the body horror sub-genre doesn’t have to lean too hard into shock & gore to be memorable.
In contrast, HEKATI YOGA was utterly perverse and disgusting--to the point where I just couldn’t hang with it anymore for fear of losing my lunch but I reminded myself that this anthology is an ambitious tribute to one of the most visually visceral directors of our time. It makes sense that the authors push hard to get the images off the pages and burned into our minds. Cody Goodfellow’s SEMINAR was one of my favorites, an exploration of techy/corporate/evil organization horror.
Jack Lothian’s story ELK had this whole “found footage” film industry vibe that I enjoyed as well as DESCRAMBLER by C.M.Miller which was about a blank VHS bootleg tape this kid, Max gets from a mysterious person in a van--both of these would have translated to the screen well but maybe seemed a bit gimmicky in story form. My favorite story was from Gwendolyn Kiste, called A New Mother's Guide to Raising an Abomination, if you haven’t read any Kiste, remedy that immediately. This anthology was a fun foray into bizzaro-body horror.
"Looking for an anthology that promises a wild ride? It doesn’t get any weirder than THE NEW FLESH. A collection of 19 stories written as an homage to director, David Cronenberg, this diverse selection of authors combine voices to assemble a veritable banquet of the bizarre."
Review sent to SCREAM Mag!
Looking for an anthology that promises a wild ride? It doesn’t get any weirder than THE NEW FLESH. A collection of 19 stories written as an homage to director, David Cronenberg, this diverse selection of authors combine voices to assemble a veritable banquet of the bizarre.
Many of the stories teeter on the edge of being grotesque to the point of offense so I would hedge a bet that not every, single, story is going to appeal to one reader. It’s also my opinion that this isn’t a deep literary dive and some of the stories telegraph that they don’t want to be taken too seriously.
There were some that I skipped after a few pages but there were others I got completely lost in. The first story, A BAD PATCH by Brian Evenson is effective storytelling and relies on a compelling story to provide good reader engagement through the protagonist’s growing paranoia (and growing stomach) proving that the body horror sub-genre doesn’t have to lean too hard into shock & gore to be memorable.
In contrast, HEKATI YOGA was utterly perverse and disgusting--to the point where I just couldn’t hang with it anymore for fear of losing my lunch but I reminded myself that this anthology is an ambitious tribute to one of the most visually visceral directors of our time. It makes sense that the authors push hard to get the images off the pages and burned into our minds. Cody Goodfellow’s SEMINAR was one of my favorites, an exploration of techy/corporate/evil organization horror.
Jack Lothian’s story ELK had this whole “found footage” film industry vibe that I enjoyed as well as DESCRAMBLER by C.M.Miller which was about a blank VHS bootleg tape this kid, Max gets from a mysterious person in a van--both of these would have translated to the screen well but maybe seemed a bit gimmicky in story form. My favorite story was from Gwendolyn Kiste, called A New Mother's Guide to Raising an Abomination, if you haven’t read any Kiste, remedy that immediately. This anthology was a fun foray into bizzaro-body horror.
"Looking for an anthology that promises a wild ride? It doesn’t get any weirder than THE NEW FLESH. A collection of 19 stories written as an homage to director, David Cronenberg, this diverse selection of authors combine voices to assemble a veritable banquet of the bizarre."
Review sent to SCREAM Mag!
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