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A review by brucemri
The Best of Both Worlds by S.P. Miskowski
5.0
Two things to note up front:
#1. I got an advance review copy.
#2. This is a piece of serial fiction. It runs in parallel with the preceding novella, The Worst Is Yet To Come, converging at the end, and the next volume will resolve them both. Nothing wrong with serial fiction, but it's good to know what you're getting so that you can shape expectations appropriately. This ends on a _great_ cliffhanger.
This is the next installment in S.P.'s Skillute Cycle, covering generations of attempted normal life and lurking supernatural peril in a fictional southwestern Washington town. As always, the exotic threat is tightly woven into close observations of the real social pressures along the whole corridor from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, that shape Skillute's place - who comes and why, what happens when they're here, the consequences to the community from accumulated failed ambitions.
The protagonists this time out are brother and sister Rolands and Pigeon, who lead nondescript lives in a nondescript part of town. She works in the high school cafeteria, he's the school janitor, and both are the sort of people it's very easy for others to overlook. That suits them, because they don't care about anyone but each other, and like how little trouble they have pursuing things that matter to them, like his abduction and murder of strangers so that she can practice communing with their dead souls. The women of her family have always been good at that, and it's a great frustration to her that she can't. But her brother loves her and is happy to keep doing his part to help her try, and it's not like anyone else ever matters to either of them.
I've enthused before about the great calmness S.P. brings to her prose, and it's here in full force. She does't have to leap around, point, and shout, "See! See!" The moral void in both characters emerges in its own time as negative space around the attention and care they bring to the things that do matter to them. It's an effect I like very much.
The siblings bring to bear a fascinating set of perspectives on what's been going on in Skillute for a while. They see so much of what others have thought was hidden, and understand a great deal more than others might wish for. In the end it's not quite enough, as their lives ram headlong into those of the protagonists of The Worst Is Yet To Come...and now I have to sit here while S.P. writes the conclusion! Truly a wretched fate.
I love this series so much, and am freshly hooked and delighted with each addition. It's wonderfully substantial, and deserves your attention, if the prospect of multigenerational horror and observed life in an interesting part of the world appeals.
#1. I got an advance review copy.
#2. This is a piece of serial fiction. It runs in parallel with the preceding novella, The Worst Is Yet To Come, converging at the end, and the next volume will resolve them both. Nothing wrong with serial fiction, but it's good to know what you're getting so that you can shape expectations appropriately. This ends on a _great_ cliffhanger.
This is the next installment in S.P.'s Skillute Cycle, covering generations of attempted normal life and lurking supernatural peril in a fictional southwestern Washington town. As always, the exotic threat is tightly woven into close observations of the real social pressures along the whole corridor from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, that shape Skillute's place - who comes and why, what happens when they're here, the consequences to the community from accumulated failed ambitions.
The protagonists this time out are brother and sister Rolands and Pigeon, who lead nondescript lives in a nondescript part of town. She works in the high school cafeteria, he's the school janitor, and both are the sort of people it's very easy for others to overlook. That suits them, because they don't care about anyone but each other, and like how little trouble they have pursuing things that matter to them, like his abduction and murder of strangers so that she can practice communing with their dead souls. The women of her family have always been good at that, and it's a great frustration to her that she can't. But her brother loves her and is happy to keep doing his part to help her try, and it's not like anyone else ever matters to either of them.
I've enthused before about the great calmness S.P. brings to her prose, and it's here in full force. She does't have to leap around, point, and shout, "See! See!" The moral void in both characters emerges in its own time as negative space around the attention and care they bring to the things that do matter to them. It's an effect I like very much.
The siblings bring to bear a fascinating set of perspectives on what's been going on in Skillute for a while. They see so much of what others have thought was hidden, and understand a great deal more than others might wish for. In the end it's not quite enough, as their lives ram headlong into those of the protagonists of The Worst Is Yet To Come...and now I have to sit here while S.P. writes the conclusion! Truly a wretched fate.
I love this series so much, and am freshly hooked and delighted with each addition. It's wonderfully substantial, and deserves your attention, if the prospect of multigenerational horror and observed life in an interesting part of the world appeals.