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A review by sausome
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror by Jordan Peele, John Joseph Adams
fast-paced
4.0
4/5 stars - This was a great anthology with many heavy-hitter favorite authors, and a few new discoveries for me. Some stories didn't work for me, like any short story collection, but most were great. N.K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Nnedi Okorafor can do nothing wrong - amazing storytellers. P. Djeli Clark, Violet Allen, and L.D. Lewis are new to me and wrote my other favorites of this collection. Okorafor's story was my absolute favorite of the whole collection.
"Reckless Eyeballing" - N.K. Jemisin (Black cop Carl sees eyes on car headlights, which leads him to suspect that the driver is guilty of a crime.)
"Eye & Tooth" - Rebecca Roanhorse (Siblings act as supernatural job-for-hires, accept a job in rural Texas from a woman with a supernatural creature problem.)
"Wandering Devil" - Cadwell Turnbull (Man who moves from town to town meets woman who wants him to settle down. But something is off.)
"Invasion of the Baby Snatchers" - Lesley Nneka Arimah (Aliens impregnating humans and trying to take over Earth; detective lead is trying to track them down/eliminate/study them.)
"The Other One" - Violet Allen (Woman can't let go of her ex, keeps thinking about him, texting him sometimes with no response, then someone begins messaging him with weird then alarming things to lure the woman to the sender. Things get creature-strange.)
"Lasirèn" - Erin E. Adams (Three sisters are tempted by a siren, despite warnings from their parents.)
"The Rider" - Tananarive Due (2 sisters try to get to Montgomery, Alabama during the Freedom Riders movement.)
"The Aesthete" - Justin C. Key (Futuristic/sci fi story where a being finds out he's The Chosen One living in a futuristic USA that might or might not declare him legally a person.)
"Pressure" - Ezra Claytan Daniels (Written in 2nd person with main person the only half-black cousin in a mainly white family during a family reunion.)
"Dark Home" - Nnedi Okorafor (A single Nigerian-American woman's father dies and she travels to Nigeria where she violates customs during the funeral to keep a token to remember her father by. Something follows her home.)
"Flicker" - L.D. Lewis (Four friends try to survive in a world that's gone crazy because of unexplained blips of pure darkness that last increasingly long.)
"The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World" - Nalo Hopkinson (A woman confronts the beast that terrorizes her village in a coastal cave/tidal pool, but instead, the beast becomes part of her.)
"The Norwood Trouble" - Maurice Broaddus (A young girl experiences a lynch mob in the years before civil rights in the U.S. but she's in a kind of magical town where the orchard guards against would-be white infiltrators.)
"A Grief of the Dead" - Rion Amilcar Scott (A man grieves the death of his twin brother who dies during a mass shooting at a concert, then struggles with wanting to follow him in the same way. The horror in this one was minimal and more about the horror of guns and continued mass shootings in the US.)
"A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree" - Nicole D. Sconiers (Two young women are killed on a dangerous stretch of road in different decades. Their spirits are bound there, where they kill misbehaving male motorists to pass the time.)
"An American Fable" - Chesya Burke (A black military veteran is traveling to Chicago from the south after serving in World War 1 - he experiences all manner of racism from the whites around him, for whom his service to his country means nothing b/c he's black, and when he becomes under attack, a lone young black girl leads him to another place.)
"Your Happy Place" - Terence Taylor (A man who works at a prison moving prisoners to some kind of lab wants to find out more about what's happening, only to discover some unsavory things about himself. Futuristic, sci-fi horror.)
"Hide & Seek" - P. Djèlí Clark (2 young siblings must hide when their mother comes searching for them. The house belonged to their grandfather who practiced Hoodoo, and their mother and dead father also practiced magic that turned on them. Their mother is like two people, monster and teacher.)
"Origin Story" - Tochi Onyebuchi (This was probably a least favorite, just because I couldn't really understand it all. It's written like a play where 4 white boys become aware of their caricature nature and that they're fictional characters in a play, turning into an examination of whiteness as boys.)
"Reckless Eyeballing" - N.K. Jemisin (Black cop Carl sees eyes on car headlights, which leads him to suspect that the driver is guilty of a crime.)
"Eye & Tooth" - Rebecca Roanhorse (Siblings act as supernatural job-for-hires, accept a job in rural Texas from a woman with a supernatural creature problem.)
"Wandering Devil" - Cadwell Turnbull (Man who moves from town to town meets woman who wants him to settle down. But something is off.)
"Invasion of the Baby Snatchers" - Lesley Nneka Arimah (Aliens impregnating humans and trying to take over Earth; detective lead is trying to track them down/eliminate/study them.)
"The Other One" - Violet Allen (Woman can't let go of her ex, keeps thinking about him, texting him sometimes with no response, then someone begins messaging him with weird then alarming things to lure the woman to the sender. Things get creature-strange.)
"Lasirèn" - Erin E. Adams (Three sisters are tempted by a siren, despite warnings from their parents.)
"The Rider" - Tananarive Due (2 sisters try to get to Montgomery, Alabama during the Freedom Riders movement.)
"The Aesthete" - Justin C. Key (Futuristic/sci fi story where a being finds out he's The Chosen One living in a futuristic USA that might or might not declare him legally a person.)
"Pressure" - Ezra Claytan Daniels (Written in 2nd person with main person the only half-black cousin in a mainly white family during a family reunion.)
"Dark Home" - Nnedi Okorafor (A single Nigerian-American woman's father dies and she travels to Nigeria where she violates customs during the funeral to keep a token to remember her father by. Something follows her home.)
"Flicker" - L.D. Lewis (Four friends try to survive in a world that's gone crazy because of unexplained blips of pure darkness that last increasingly long.)
"The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World" - Nalo Hopkinson (A woman confronts the beast that terrorizes her village in a coastal cave/tidal pool, but instead, the beast becomes part of her.)
"The Norwood Trouble" - Maurice Broaddus (A young girl experiences a lynch mob in the years before civil rights in the U.S. but she's in a kind of magical town where the orchard guards against would-be white infiltrators.)
"A Grief of the Dead" - Rion Amilcar Scott (A man grieves the death of his twin brother who dies during a mass shooting at a concert, then struggles with wanting to follow him in the same way. The horror in this one was minimal and more about the horror of guns and continued mass shootings in the US.)
"A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree" - Nicole D. Sconiers (Two young women are killed on a dangerous stretch of road in different decades. Their spirits are bound there, where they kill misbehaving male motorists to pass the time.)
"An American Fable" - Chesya Burke (A black military veteran is traveling to Chicago from the south after serving in World War 1 - he experiences all manner of racism from the whites around him, for whom his service to his country means nothing b/c he's black, and when he becomes under attack, a lone young black girl leads him to another place.)
"Your Happy Place" - Terence Taylor (A man who works at a prison moving prisoners to some kind of lab wants to find out more about what's happening, only to discover some unsavory things about himself. Futuristic, sci-fi horror.)
"Hide & Seek" - P. Djèlí Clark (2 young siblings must hide when their mother comes searching for them. The house belonged to their grandfather who practiced Hoodoo, and their mother and dead father also practiced magic that turned on them. Their mother is like two people, monster and teacher.)
"Origin Story" - Tochi Onyebuchi (This was probably a least favorite, just because I couldn't really understand it all. It's written like a play where 4 white boys become aware of their caricature nature and that they're fictional characters in a play, turning into an examination of whiteness as boys.)