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A review by marzipan9
Spin a Black Yarn by Josh Malerman
4.0
Spin a Black Yarn is 4 short stories and a novella/novelette. My favorite of the five was The Jupiter Drop, a story about a man who takes a 2 month vacation dropping through Jupiter's atmosphere in a glass apartment. You get to feel Steve's despair as he decides to take the trip, and as he grapples with the loneliness despite having any AI companions he could have. Argyle was a strange trip, as a man admits he had been surprising serial killer urges his entire life while on his death bed. The morbid fascination of his children, the denial of other family members and close family friends as he keeps speaking, undeterred.
Half a Haunted House is told in a really interesting way, in alternating conversations with a brother and sister who grow up in a very strange house, all the way through the death of the sister. I really enjoyed the storytelling on this one, though it was a bit hard to get used to the childish back and forth the story starts out with. Doug and Judy buy the Washer tells the story of a rich couple, obsessed with being the Joneses so that everyone keeps up with them, use their brand new toy for the first time, and get quite a bit more than what they bargained for. They definitely found out what "For what we spent on this" actually means to them.
Finally, in Egorov, the remaining two triplets seek vengeance for their murdered brother. This one was a big draggy for me, I think I got used to the pacing of the short stories, and expected this longer novella/novelette to have the same pacing.
I found this to be a decent short story collection, and I really enjoyed the fact that all of the stories had ties to Samhatten, where we first met Daphne last year.
Half a Haunted House is told in a really interesting way, in alternating conversations with a brother and sister who grow up in a very strange house, all the way through the death of the sister. I really enjoyed the storytelling on this one, though it was a bit hard to get used to the childish back and forth the story starts out with. Doug and Judy buy the Washer tells the story of a rich couple, obsessed with being the Joneses so that everyone keeps up with them, use their brand new toy for the first time, and get quite a bit more than what they bargained for. They definitely found out what "For what we spent on this" actually means to them.
Finally, in Egorov, the remaining two triplets seek vengeance for their murdered brother. This one was a big draggy for me, I think I got used to the pacing of the short stories, and expected this longer novella/novelette to have the same pacing.
I found this to be a decent short story collection, and I really enjoyed the fact that all of the stories had ties to Samhatten, where we first met Daphne last year.