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Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'
The Fiends in the Furrows III: Final Harvest by Christine M. Scott, David T. Neal
1 review
wildflowercrypt's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
this is the third volume in the Fiends folk horror anthology; this series is very dear to me and i was so excited to read the next, and apparently final, installment.
i’ve mixed feelings to be honest; the previous volumes featured a few stories i didn’t really connect with (the Jaws of Ouroboros and the Complete Compleat Gardener to be precise) but i did love 6 of the 9 stories featured in Volume I, and 7 of the 11 in Volume II, and found that to be a fair ratio. but this time around, i only liked 10 of the 19 in Volume III and maybe that’s still a decent ratio of like:disliked, but the duds this time around?? just, godawful.
i don’t have words for how badly written F is for the Farm is; it’s… “creative writing assignment in high school” bad, which is shocking considering the author has apparently won awards. Paper Coins had a whisper of… fairies, i think? its narrative structure is extremely disjointed, and the story so briefly features its chosen supernatural element to the point i am still at a loss as to how it even made the cut. Radegast was a slog; Come Sing for the Harrowing was just odd with no explanation as to why any of it was happening, or necessary. even the ones i did like, a few of them could have used another pass or two (or three) in edits (ex: the Gods that Drift with Us, a brilliant idea that is let down by the slight repetitiveness of its writing in certain passages). and there were typos, at least 5 that i noticed.
it’s not the best of the series but if you’re craving folk horror, there are some real diamonds in the rough here:
i’ve mixed feelings to be honest; the previous volumes featured a few stories i didn’t really connect with (the Jaws of Ouroboros and the Complete Compleat Gardener to be precise) but i did love 6 of the 9 stories featured in Volume I, and 7 of the 11 in Volume II, and found that to be a fair ratio. but this time around, i only liked 10 of the 19 in Volume III and maybe that’s still a decent ratio of like:disliked, but the duds this time around?? just, godawful.
i don’t have words for how badly written F is for the Farm is; it’s… “creative writing assignment in high school” bad, which is shocking considering the author has apparently won awards. Paper Coins had a whisper of… fairies, i think? its narrative structure is extremely disjointed, and the story so briefly features its chosen supernatural element to the point i am still at a loss as to how it even made the cut. Radegast was a slog; Come Sing for the Harrowing was just odd with no explanation as to why any of it was happening, or necessary. even the ones i did like, a few of them could have used another pass or two (or three) in edits (ex: the Gods that Drift with Us, a brilliant idea that is let down by the slight repetitiveness of its writing in certain passages). and there were typos, at least 5 that i noticed.
it’s not the best of the series but if you’re craving folk horror, there are some real diamonds in the rough here:
- the Keeper of the Light
- the Last Honeyboy
- Mrs. Badger’s Bones
- As the Thing Is Needed
- Mulberry Silk
- the Gods that Drift with Us
- the Sickle and the Tithe
- Sarsen Wood
- Malleability
- Witchwalking
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Racial slurs, and Murder
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, and Pedophilia
the racial slur for the Romani is used frequently in the story “Herald of the Red Hen” as the protagonist is a Romani man; the same slur is also used in “Radegast”
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