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tobyyy's review
4.0
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. :)
malglories's review
3.0
the sudden shock of horror in "finnegan's field" is so well-done. there is no dissembling here, no hiding what we all as readers know to be true as soon as we read the hints. it's the aftermath that's interesting, although i found the most crucial parts of that aftermath to be rather disappointing. the ultimate culprit, for example. it made sense, but it also wasn't sold quite well enough. the ending makes up for it a little.
read it for free here.
read it for free here.
aashkevr's review
4.0
You can read this FOR FREE at Tor.com. For FREE. This gem of a short story ... can be read.. for free.
Go read it.
Dark and twisted and everything one could want in a faerie story. Beautiful prose providing compelling but oh-so-hideous metaphor.
Go read it.
Dark and twisted and everything one could want in a faerie story. Beautiful prose providing compelling but oh-so-hideous metaphor.
codalion's review
2.0
Are the Irish and Irish-ish diaspora such a captive audience for sentimental woo? I guess we must be, on average; this, however, I kept expecting to coalesce into something a little more genuinely disturbing about either small towns or child disappearances, and it didn't, aside from a vague symbolic gesture. It was very on the nose. It had several points where a supernatural creature explained extremely literal supernatural lore--who knew the Fair Folk were so helpful?
But I did read it all to the end despite having not paid for it, which meant something about the writing or situation kept me a little interested, even if it was a sort of interested premised on assuming it was going to be a little more complex than it actually was. There's a throwaway reference to the Capgras delusion, which was honestly what I was expecting this story to be about; but instead of being layered in there it's just kind of... inexpertly tossed out as an authorial attempt to dismiss the Capgras delusion and signify to the reader that this is a very, very straightforward story.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have liked the very rote unreliable psychological horror story about the Capgras delusion either (and aren't there already a billion missing-kid movies like that?) but I also wasn't interested in something this on the nose, this festooned with straightforward helpful worldbuilding blurbs.
In closing:
This is at once the most narcissistic and wretched thing, I suppose, like many narcissistic things; the fact is that everyone forgets.
But I did read it all to the end despite having not paid for it, which meant something about the writing or situation kept me a little interested, even if it was a sort of interested premised on assuming it was going to be a little more complex than it actually was. There's a throwaway reference to the Capgras delusion, which was honestly what I was expecting this story to be about; but instead of being layered in there it's just kind of... inexpertly tossed out as an authorial attempt to dismiss the Capgras delusion and signify to the reader that this is a very, very straightforward story.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have liked the very rote unreliable psychological horror story about the Capgras delusion either (and aren't there already a billion missing-kid movies like that?) but I also wasn't interested in something this on the nose, this festooned with straightforward helpful worldbuilding blurbs.
In closing:
Sobbing, the not-daughter said, “Your kind takes your heritage with you, surely as a scent. Other cultures, after a time, blend in with their new environments, but the Irish never really do. They’re always identifiable, no matter how many generations between them and the misty green, no matter how thin the blood becomes; they don’t forget what runs in their veins, that Brigid and Morrígu are their true mothers. You carry it just as you carry your grief; even when you celebrate, you know that sadness will follow as surely as your shadow trails behind you.”
This is at once the most narcissistic and wretched thing, I suppose, like many narcissistic things; the fact is that everyone forgets.
pezski's review
4.0
A superb story of Irish-Australians finding they've taken more from the old country to their new land than they realised.
Centred around a girl who has returned after being missing for three years and the mother who seems to be the only one who sees she is changed, this tale this changeling tale wonderfully addresses the themes of loss, separation, revenge and acceptance. Dark and disturbing, of course.
Centred around a girl who has returned after being missing for three years and the mother who seems to be the only one who sees she is changed, this tale this changeling tale wonderfully addresses the themes of loss, separation, revenge and acceptance. Dark and disturbing, of course.
priyabhakta's review
4.0
I'm not usually a horror fan but I saw this on Tor and the concept sounded interesting. This story had me captivated. Creepy but human with a supernatural turn. I wasn't so convinced by the the of exposition given by the creature but am intrigued to see what else Slatter has written.