Scan barcode
rachela1eaf's review
3.0
Well, this was a hell of a ride! Queer, over the top, surreal, and full of monsters--everything I love. Honestly, I love this anthology just for existing, but I have to rate it at three stars because several of the stories fell pretty flat for me--they had interesting content, but the writing got in the way of it. Some of the stories also ended without really explaining anything, which is a pet peeve of mine. And while I enjoyed reading them, most of the stories weren't super memorable. Apex Jump, the Minotaur, and Bad Dream Girl come to mind as the most memorable. Still, though, it was an enjoyable read, with a lot of wild, crazy ideas.
nilchance's review
4.0
Roller derby, Incryptid story, and Antimony POV = delight.
I love Verity and Alex, but I have to admit that Antimony is my favorite sibling. The side characters in this were great, and it provided a different lens with which to view characters we know from the main Incryptid series. (Like Artie. Oh, Artie.)
Merged review:
I was reading Glitter and Mayhem, but there was an honest-to-god "I'm not like those ugly hairy-legged lesbian feminists!" story in there, so I read the Antimony story and quit. I'm reviewing the Antimony story in the Goodreads entry for it.
I did read and enjoy the story Apex Jump, with its highly endearing protagonist and the idea of a cosmic roller derby. Positive trans characters rock.
I may try again later, when I'm feeling less bitter and less focused on reaching Seanan's story. I feel bad for not giving every author a shot, at least.
I love Verity and Alex, but I have to admit that Antimony is my favorite sibling. The side characters in this were great, and it provided a different lens with which to view characters we know from the main Incryptid series. (Like Artie. Oh, Artie.)
Merged review:
I was reading Glitter and Mayhem, but there was an honest-to-god "I'm not like those ugly hairy-legged lesbian feminists!" story in there, so I read the Antimony story and quit. I'm reviewing the Antimony story in the Goodreads entry for it.
I did read and enjoy the story Apex Jump, with its highly endearing protagonist and the idea of a cosmic roller derby. Positive trans characters rock.
I may try again later, when I'm feeling less bitter and less focused on reaching Seanan's story. I feel bad for not giving every author a shot, at least.
audreyintheheadphones's review
4.0
Skates on. Ante up.
Myths, legends, 90s industrial music and roller derby. This book has a lot going on all at once. And so much of it makes you ruminate on the clubs of your own misspent youth*. At the same time, this anthology is what you always wished those clubs would be: secret fantastic portals where you really were the hero of a dark fantasy epic that made all that time spent picking out your outfit suddenly worth it.
All anthologies are mixed bags, but what impressed me here was that the stories that were good were really, really good. Beyond good enough for me to forgive the ones that weren't.
Those stories themselves, in order:
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster: 4 stars. Clever, trippy and nostalgic. Even when it heads in an obvious direction, it's still fun and satisfying.
Apex Jump: 5 stars, one of my favorites in the collection. And I don't even like roller derby that much.
With Her Hundred Miles to Hell: 4 stars. A leetle predictable, but enjoyable (and puzzling!) nonetheless. tw: animal harm.
Star Dancer 4 stars. Strange and fun, with unexpected developments and Alien Sex Fiend.
Of Selkies, Disco Balls and Anna Plane 3 stars. Once the action gets going it's good, but it took a hot minute and besides, the narrator's an uninteresting jerk.
Sooner Than Gold: 3 stars; would've been 5 but OY THAT ENDING. NO.
Subterraneans: 5 stars, tied for my favorite story in the book. Unique and unsettling and harsh and just so much early twenties, y'all.
The Minotaur Girls: 4 stars. A spectacular re-imagining of the traditional minotaur myth that gets super weird right at the end. I need to re-read this and see if I understand it yet.
Unable to Reach You: Um, 1 star. The best I can say is that MFA programs have a lot to answer for.
Such and Such Said to So & So: 2 stars. A pun that goes on far too long.
Revels in the Land of Ice: 2 stars, but very very Berkeley.
Bess, the Landlord's Daughter, Goes For Drinks With the Green Girl: 5 stars, loved it, need more ghost girls everywhere immediately.
Blood and Sequins: 2 stars. There does come a point at which you can be too cryptic and it's frustrating to read. Plus I didn't buy the protagonists for a hot second.
Two-Minute Warning: ...good? I think? Could have used more dancing, and I didn't personally love it as much as some of the other stories, but it's original and clever.
Inside Hides the Monster: 5 stars and I loved it. I loved the setup and the music references and holy hell was I impressed by the ending.
Bad Dream Girl: 5 stars and my other favorite in the collection. I'd never read any Seanan McGuire before and I mentioned I'm not a huge roller derby fan, right? But this roller derby story is AMAZING. I just stopped and reread it while writing this review. The team and world is just so fully realized, snarky and fun.
A Hollow Play: 4 stars. Four tiny, beautiful melancholy stars for this amazing story about how clubs are really just a search for belonging and connection.
Just Another Future Song: 1 star. The only story in the book I legitimately could not finish.
The Electric Spanking of the War Babies 3 stars but loved it for all the references to classic soul.
All That Fairy Tale Crap 2 stars. You can go for shock value as an author, and go for grunge, but not everyone's going to love that and that's me. I also didn't see where the author was trying to go with this story; it was almost like a grimy inversion of the very first story in the collection, but it just didn't work for me.
Anyway.
One thing that is solidly good about this collection is that it's positively dripping with music. Obvious, mainstream stuff like Prince, Sister Sledge, Duran Duran and Soft Cell, and as well as dark industrial stuff like Legendary Pink Dots, Front 242 and Vicious Pink, all the way through to all the soul references in "War Babies".
Plus so much Bowie that wherever the Thin White Duke went when he shed this planet, I'm fairly sure he's got a copy of this book in his travel bag.
So to that end, here's a short Spotify playlist from when the book first came out, and then, because I noticed it was missing a bunch of songs and I don't Spotify, I made this more exhaustive YouTube playlist by combing back through the book, story by story, looking for all the references. It's as complete as I could make it, and in the approximate order the songs appear in the book. Real life is for other people.
*For me that was Midtown Barfly (née Club Reverence) and Club Séance in Sacramento (trust me, it takes real commitment to do goth in the desert), the Orpheum in SF (so much vomit) and Bar Sinister in LA, where the two people least capable of navigating Los Angeles had to find a mystery donut shop and apartment complex at 1am. The me that was there is the me that loved so much about this book.
Myths, legends, 90s industrial music and roller derby. This book has a lot going on all at once. And so much of it makes you ruminate on the clubs of your own misspent youth*. At the same time, this anthology is what you always wished those clubs would be: secret fantastic portals where you really were the hero of a dark fantasy epic that made all that time spent picking out your outfit suddenly worth it.
All anthologies are mixed bags, but what impressed me here was that the stories that were good were really, really good. Beyond good enough for me to forgive the ones that weren't.
Those stories themselves, in order:
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster: 4 stars. Clever, trippy and nostalgic. Even when it heads in an obvious direction, it's still fun and satisfying.
Apex Jump: 5 stars, one of my favorites in the collection. And I don't even like roller derby that much.
With Her Hundred Miles to Hell: 4 stars. A leetle predictable, but enjoyable (and puzzling!) nonetheless. tw: animal harm.
Star Dancer 4 stars. Strange and fun, with unexpected developments and Alien Sex Fiend.
Of Selkies, Disco Balls and Anna Plane 3 stars. Once the action gets going it's good, but it took a hot minute and besides, the narrator's an uninteresting jerk.
Sooner Than Gold: 3 stars; would've been 5 but OY THAT ENDING. NO.
Subterraneans: 5 stars, tied for my favorite story in the book. Unique and unsettling and harsh and just so much early twenties, y'all.
The Minotaur Girls: 4 stars. A spectacular re-imagining of the traditional minotaur myth that gets super weird right at the end. I need to re-read this and see if I understand it yet.
Unable to Reach You: Um, 1 star. The best I can say is that MFA programs have a lot to answer for.
Such and Such Said to So & So: 2 stars. A pun that goes on far too long.
Revels in the Land of Ice: 2 stars, but very very Berkeley.
Bess, the Landlord's Daughter, Goes For Drinks With the Green Girl: 5 stars, loved it, need more ghost girls everywhere immediately.
Blood and Sequins: 2 stars. There does come a point at which you can be too cryptic and it's frustrating to read. Plus I didn't buy the protagonists for a hot second.
Two-Minute Warning: ...good? I think? Could have used more dancing, and I didn't personally love it as much as some of the other stories, but it's original and clever.
Inside Hides the Monster: 5 stars and I loved it. I loved the setup and the music references and holy hell was I impressed by the ending.
Bad Dream Girl: 5 stars and my other favorite in the collection. I'd never read any Seanan McGuire before and I mentioned I'm not a huge roller derby fan, right? But this roller derby story is AMAZING. I just stopped and reread it while writing this review. The team and world is just so fully realized, snarky and fun.
A Hollow Play: 4 stars. Four tiny, beautiful melancholy stars for this amazing story about how clubs are really just a search for belonging and connection.
Just Another Future Song: 1 star. The only story in the book I legitimately could not finish.
The Electric Spanking of the War Babies 3 stars but loved it for all the references to classic soul.
All That Fairy Tale Crap 2 stars. You can go for shock value as an author, and go for grunge, but not everyone's going to love that and that's me. I also didn't see where the author was trying to go with this story; it was almost like a grimy inversion of the very first story in the collection, but it just didn't work for me.
Anyway.
One thing that is solidly good about this collection is that it's positively dripping with music. Obvious, mainstream stuff like Prince, Sister Sledge, Duran Duran and Soft Cell, and as well as dark industrial stuff like Legendary Pink Dots, Front 242 and Vicious Pink, all the way through to all the soul references in "War Babies".
Plus so much Bowie that wherever the Thin White Duke went when he shed this planet, I'm fairly sure he's got a copy of this book in his travel bag.
So to that end, here's a short Spotify playlist from when the book first came out, and then, because I noticed it was missing a bunch of songs and I don't Spotify, I made this more exhaustive YouTube playlist by combing back through the book, story by story, looking for all the references. It's as complete as I could make it, and in the approximate order the songs appear in the book. Real life is for other people.
*For me that was Midtown Barfly (née Club Reverence) and Club Séance in Sacramento (trust me, it takes real commitment to do goth in the desert), the Orpheum in SF (so much vomit) and Bar Sinister in LA, where the two people least capable of navigating Los Angeles had to find a mystery donut shop and apartment complex at 1am. The me that was there is the me that loved so much about this book.
catevari's review
4.0
Having read the first three Incryptid books, Antimony, the youngest Price, has only been a mention in the background so it was nice to finally get to meet her and, unlike Alex, she stood out much more for me, even in this short story. An excellent short and I really liked that the resolution didn't fully rest on just Antimony.
angelsaves's review
4.0
this anthology was of uneven quality, but the ones i liked, i REALLY liked (especially seanan mcguire's, obviously).
More...