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A review by verkisto
A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle
4.0
I've liked what I've read by Lisa Tuttle (for a long time, her Lost Futures was my favorite from the Abyss imprint), but she's never been an author whose novels have made me want to read everything she's written. A Nest of Nightmares has never pinged my radar, but I've enjoyed the Paperbacks from Hell imprint, and I do love supporting Valancourt books so they'll keep reprinting classic gems from the heyday of horror.
Like any short story collection, I liked some, disliked others, and loved a handful, but when I think about the ones that I loved, it's enough to bump the rest of the collection up to four stars. "Treading the Maze" and "A Friend in Need" are less horror and more supernatural, since they're gentle stories of relationships. There's a blunt nature to Tuttle's stories, with a lot of exposition written in a sentence or two, but they're very effective. Most of them, in fact, spend a lot of time building up the entire story to end with a sentence or two that chills you. It's a good feeling.
Her stories tend to focus on female identity, and about how hard it is to have one -- mother, daughter, or sister -- and still be an individual. Interestingly, I found that a lot of her stories are about failure, and I don't know if those two themes are supposed to intersect. Is it a failure of self to take on the roles that are defined through other people?
Like any short story collection, I liked some, disliked others, and loved a handful, but when I think about the ones that I loved, it's enough to bump the rest of the collection up to four stars. "Treading the Maze" and "A Friend in Need" are less horror and more supernatural, since they're gentle stories of relationships. There's a blunt nature to Tuttle's stories, with a lot of exposition written in a sentence or two, but they're very effective. Most of them, in fact, spend a lot of time building up the entire story to end with a sentence or two that chills you. It's a good feeling.
Her stories tend to focus on female identity, and about how hard it is to have one -- mother, daughter, or sister -- and still be an individual. Interestingly, I found that a lot of her stories are about failure, and I don't know if those two themes are supposed to intersect. Is it a failure of self to take on the roles that are defined through other people?