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A review by emergencily
Out There Screaming by Jordan Peele, John Joseph Adams
fast-paced
4.0
Finished in time for Halloween!
This is an antholgoy of short horror stories by 19 black authors, edited by Jordan Peele. All kinds of different genres, writing styles, themes, and settings, but the overarching theme is the examination of black identity & experiences through horror. And of course, spoiler alert, the greatest horror of all is white supremacy. I liked how diverse the stories were in terms of genre & writing styles. Some were historical, some were futuristic sci-fi, some were dystopian & apocalyptical, some were spiritual or mythological.
I think the strongest stories seem to be concentrated in the start of the anthology, but the whole collection is worthwhile. Maybe 2 or 3 stories were just total misses for me, like the one that was basically just the plot of a Black Mirror episode where the protagonist realizes the dream life he's living is literally a dream. It was just a little bit too predictable and tropey. The one with the robots developing consciousness had potential but ended up feeling messy - it reminded me of the plot of Detroit Become Human, and not in a good way. I hate that game badly.
The thing is I think the collection would have benefitted from having a smaller number of stories (maybe like 12-15?) and letting each story run a couple pages longer to give them more space for pacing and development. I noticed that a number of stories had great and promising set-ups, but weren't able to follow through and had fumbled endings. E.g. the alien baby snatching story was super interesting, but ends all at once. And not even in a way that feels purposeful or meaningful, it just feels accidental like the author's electricity got turned off. And there's some kind of big reveal at the end, but it's so nonsensical I couldn't puzzle it out even after re-reading the story to figure it out.
Although it's marketed as horror, it wasn't very scary. Mostly mildly to medium creepy. A number of stories just read as regular sci-fi / dystopia, and didn't seem to fit the horror genre as well. I think one of the strongest stories was the one about the Igbo woman at her father's funeral.
This is an antholgoy of short horror stories by 19 black authors, edited by Jordan Peele. All kinds of different genres, writing styles, themes, and settings, but the overarching theme is the examination of black identity & experiences through horror. And of course, spoiler alert, the greatest horror of all is white supremacy. I liked how diverse the stories were in terms of genre & writing styles. Some were historical, some were futuristic sci-fi, some were dystopian & apocalyptical, some were spiritual or mythological.
I think the strongest stories seem to be concentrated in the start of the anthology, but the whole collection is worthwhile. Maybe 2 or 3 stories were just total misses for me, like the one that was basically just the plot of a Black Mirror episode where the protagonist realizes the dream life he's living is literally a dream. It was just a little bit too predictable and tropey. The one with the robots developing consciousness had potential but ended up feeling messy - it reminded me of the plot of Detroit Become Human, and not in a good way. I hate that game badly.
The thing is I think the collection would have benefitted from having a smaller number of stories (maybe like 12-15?) and letting each story run a couple pages longer to give them more space for pacing and development. I noticed that a number of stories had great and promising set-ups, but weren't able to follow through and had fumbled endings. E.g. the alien baby snatching story was super interesting, but ends all at once. And not even in a way that feels purposeful or meaningful, it just feels accidental like the author's electricity got turned off. And there's some kind of big reveal at the end, but it's so nonsensical I couldn't puzzle it out even after re-reading the story to figure it out.
Although it's marketed as horror, it wasn't very scary. Mostly mildly to medium creepy. A number of stories just read as regular sci-fi / dystopia, and didn't seem to fit the horror genre as well. I think one of the strongest stories was the one about the Igbo woman at her father's funeral.