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A review by librarycryptid
Arterial Bloom by Mercedes M. Yardley
dark
medium-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
To read this and other reviews, check out my blog, The Library Cryptid: https://librarycryptid.wordpress.com/
Arterial Bloom is nothing if not ambitious, and offers something to fit all tastes—which is its greatest weakness. There are wonderful, stand-out stories in this collection, including “Kudzu Stories” by Linda J. Marshall, “Welcome to Autumn” by Daniel Crow, and “In the Loop” by Ken Liu, but I found that the primary reason I enjoyed them was usually the atmosphere they created, and upon finishing the anthology I don’t know how I would feel about them were they to appear in a collection of high-quality work.
Arterial Bloom is nothing if not ambitious, and offers something to fit all tastes—which is its greatest weakness. There are wonderful, stand-out stories in this collection, including “Kudzu Stories” by Linda J. Marshall, “Welcome to Autumn” by Daniel Crow, and “In the Loop” by Ken Liu, but I found that the primary reason I enjoyed them was usually the atmosphere they created, and upon finishing the anthology I don’t know how I would feel about them were they to appear in a collection of high-quality work.
Other stories fall short for various reasons. The opener, “The Stone Door” by Jimmy Bernard, has an interesting premise but that’s all it is—the premise doesn’t end up making much sense and doesn’t hold water, which detracts from the story as a whole. “Doodlebug” by John Boden feels like it’s been done many a time before, and “The Making of Mary” by Steven Pirie feels preachy.
My average rating across all stories ended up being a 2.8, which I rounded down to two due to what I feel was poor editing choices. Yardley did herself a disservice choosing not to have a themed anthology; there is no linking thread tying these stories together, and without consistent quality it feels less like an anthology and more like a mere compilation. My favorite story of the bunch was “Blue Was Her Favorite Color” by Dino Parenti.